Kocher chairs the English department at University of Colorado Boulder and will become associate dean for arts and humanities there in July. She spoke with Colorado Matters host Ryan Warner.
From Third Voice, published by Tupelo Press, copyright 2016 Ruth Ellen Kocher. Used with permission Skit: Pearl Bailey and Eartha Kitt Revise Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful Whether we love it or hate it is irrelevant to its worth. We have heard more women call women whores than we have heard men call women whores. We have more light than we know what to do with. Live with it. Some time ago, a Woman asked us for five women we loved and five women we hated and five women we hated to love . . . or maybe five women we hated and five women we loved and five women we loved to hate . . . or both. We haven’t been able to answer. We’re trying not to sing too easy green and violet veins meaning moth-winged flower or would it be worse to say bloom? The shackled hardwood, the ribs of the house, the ribs of a huge beast, the ribs of a fossil, the ribs of a thing destined to be stone. We call ourselves Away. Stranded is a place not a thing Olio 34 A time ago no one smiled in photographs and the absence of a smile meant that the mouth was serious and so the face was serious and so the hair and so the arm and so on There was a red velvet chair Behind the mouth there may have been teeth or may not have been teeth There was a red velvet chair There may have been an utterance deep in the throat an echo of the chest a small recessed word clamoring to traverse the line of teeth the line of lips There may have been an unnoticed happiness that came from a simple thing The bread has risen The ice has thawed The cellar is filled with potatoes There was a red velvet chair A time ago not smiling in a photograph meant that sepia spoke first meant the corset held its breath meant a dog had died perhaps perhaps not meant many rooms perhaps or not meant servitude maybe not A time ago the smile was inconsistent and could not be trusted There was a red velvet chair A time ago the smile was an outlaw the smile was an open curtain the smile was the world seeping in the way a keyhole allows the outside in though no one sees it There was a red velvet chair in which no one sat Behind the mouth there may have been melting snow may have been the violins that tell us what we should feel There was a red velvet chair where someone would not sit There may have been a watch that did not tick A time ago sepia said no posture said no ruffles said no no the chair said no the phosphorous said stay said still said where can you go Skit: Paul Robeson on Stein, After She’s interesting enough to play herself over and over again in indie films that aim to strike the pose of that generation of interest at the moment if the profile necessitates a tortured sort of soul though now she is thin in her good looks her beard grows in dark and faint balancing the delicacy of her face the exception a naturally furrowed brow against an obvious masculinity. |
