Sculpture by Kenneth Paul Lesko
Daughter, I won’t make milk for you anymore.
The body retreats. It reclaims
miracles.
Published in Glint Literary Journal.
Reabsorption Elegy
06 Oct 2014 Leave a comment
in Published poems Tags: breast feeding, breastfeeding poems, contemporary poetry, elegy, Family and children, healing poetry, Mexican American poetry, Motherhood, motherhood poetry, pregnancy poems
“Miracle of the River Pig” up at *Goblin Fruit*
23 Jun 2014 1 Comment
in Published poems Tags: Brawley, Chicana poetry, contemporary poetry, environmental poetry, feminist poetry, healing poetry, Imperial Valley fiction, Jenn Givhan poetry, La Llorona, pregnancy poems
My poem “Miracle of the River Pig”
is live today at Goblin Fruit, and you can listen to me read it there as well!
It’s a grotesque and somewhat experimental poem for me recounting my experience in the Southern California desert near the New River. I began drafting the poem in Brenda Hammack‘s fairytale workshop with The Rooster Moans Poetry Cooperative, while I was also reading Frank Bidart’s “The War of Vaslav Nijinsky.”
I hope you enjoy! Thanks for reading! 
" — Selves like iridescent, shining, speckled shit in the Río Nuevo frothy foaming stinking desert river desert in the new world — how old were you? fifteen & blessed as Santa María, I’m that lucky pig in the river — cut my trotters, strike my blue-butt, handle me, sell me at auction, devour me." --Jenn Givhan
Mama Hulas with the Eggslice Player One Last Time
02 Jun 2014 Leave a comment
in Published poems Tags: contemporary poetry, Family and children, Mexican American poetry, motherhood poetry, pregnancy poems
My poem published at Tupelo Quarterly.
photo credit raw fashion magazine
“the skate-floor-turned-dance-
for-your-life-floor,
just beginning to understand
I was the reason
for her dizziness and egglonging”
–Jenn Givhan
Miscarriage
02 Aug 2013 Leave a comment
in Poems Tags: contemporary poetry, fairytale poems, Family and children, healing poetry, Infertility, Jenn Givhan, Jenn Givhan poetry, La Llorona, Mexican American poetry, miscarriage poems, mother writer, motherhood poetry, pregnancy poems, surreal poetry
Jennifer Givhan
Miscarriag
e
In a field where a hot air balloon waits tethered,
children balancing umbrellas and wearing party hats
plant birthday bouquets; where they grow
the swollen bulbs push open the soil
smelling of clay and fingerpaint. Even the sky
celebrates in reverse, hanging like pigtails from a jungle gym.
Not many daffodils or crickets are lucky enough to become fossils,
but here every joule of heat remains inside the balloon.
One might be tempted to drift away now
rather than later.
Dark Lady Poetry
15 Feb 2012 Leave a comment
in Published poems Tags: Eve, Garden of Eden poems, husband poems, John Milton, Paradise Lost, pregnancy poems, pregnant
My poems “You Don’t Want More Kids, You Claim,” and “The Eve of Destruction” have been published in Dark Lady Poetry online. I wrote the Eve poem as part of a longer poem many years ago in an undergrad creative writing class and have continued shaping it and polishing it all this time. Eventually, I decided to take out the other sections and let Eve’s voice come through all by herself, without the chatter of other (male) voices, like God’s, for example. Ha. Finally, five or six years later, this poem was accepted for publication. Moral of the story? Revision works, and sometimes it takes years to get a poem right. Lesson learned. Of course, the other poem published here, I wrote one morning after a weird dream and have done little to reshape it since. You just never know.
