Colleen McKee

At the Edge of the Earth

2011-07-16T21:19:00.000-07:00

Dear readers, I am now living in Berkeley, California, where the streets are lined in jasmine but often smell like piss. I'm working on a short story, a prose poem, and a poem.

Next magazine publication: real-life spy poems in eleven eleven

Next book publication: A Partial List of Things I Have Done for Money, a book of poems + two stories from JK Publishing. There will be a deluxe art version and a "regular" version. Both will feature the photos of John Walker Eckles (aka St. Johnnie Walker), Alison Carrick, and Bob Reuter.

Next reading: The Magic Eight (Bitchez Brew series), on Sat., July 30, 7:30-10:30, Viracocha SF, 998 Valencia, San Francisco. I'll read with Kathleen Wood, Maw Shein Win, James Warner, Siamak Vossoughi, Janey Smith, and Nicholas Karavatos. Music by the Beehavers, with Beeface Killah. I promise to be at my most magical bitchiest.

Upcoming Readings, Sun. and Mon.

2010-10-21T13:58:00.000-07:00

I will be reading and emceeing a reading at Hartford Coffee Shop, Hartford @ Roger, one block south of Tower Grove Park, on Sunday, Oct. 24th at 5 pm, along with Mary Ann Kelly, Niki Nymark, and others. The reading is free; books, coffee, and snacks will be available for sale.

I'll also be reading as part of the Chance Operations Series, along with Kelli Allen and Ken Brown, at Duff's on Euclid in the Central West End, on Monday, Oct. 25th at 7:30 pm. Books might be for sale there too. The restaurant is closed then, so get your vittles beforehand. However, you may drink all you wish at the lovely cash bar. See chanceoperationsstl.blogspot.com for more details & samples of the poets' work.

So You Want to Edit An Anthology

2010-03-29T11:28:00.001-07:00

This week I am a guest columnist for Ruth Ellen Kocher's blog, aboutaword.blogspot.com If you've ever been curious about the glamorous world of editing a creative writing anthology, check it out.

Blue Like an Orange

2010-03-06T13:09:00.000-08:00

La terre est bleue comme une orange.
(The world is blue like an orange.)
--Paul Eluard

I am riding the bus
with a pumpkin in my lap--no pass
or pocketbook, no notebook, map
or keys. I only hold the pumpkin,
a perfect size, not so large
I have to stretch my arms
to keep it in its place, but not so small
that it could roll or bounce beneath the seats.
I wear a dress the color of lettuce, iceberg
to be exact. I like that it is scalloped
like leaves around the hem. I have no plans
for my spherical squash,
no thoughts of pie or lanterns,
salted seeds or soup. No, no plans at all.
I look out the window with something like interest
though there is nothing to see, no foliage,
no fences, no birds or bustling men,
only a sky with that light
peculiar to October,
light like a golden ball
sunk in a deep blue pond,
this gold so blue so bright it wavers,
common, strange, unasked for grace.
Little kids behind me
sling their bodies across my seat to Ooh,
you've got a pumpkin! Oh, can I
pet your pumpkin? Of course,
I say. Of course. I continue to stare
at the sky as these children--strangers to me--
touch for the sake of touch. Somehow I know
the bus has turned yellow, that yellow
only buses can be. I sit
with the sun in my lap.

Temp Girl on the 91 Olive

2010-03-06T13:05:00.000-08:00

I watch ants swarm about on the sidewalk
locked in mathematical fury,
a maze of imperatives
wobbling around a chicken bone
nearly as thin as their legs.

From my eyes, fifty-eight
inches away, the bone looks picked pretty clean,
shines like a stick pin of pearl,
but there must be some treasure
I cannot see, some miniscule morsel of gristle,
some scrap of sun-baked fat.
We all have our reasons for living.

I step up to the bus
and hear a soft crack--
feel it more than I hear it--
look under my heel, see marrow
and something like feathers,
filaments really,
waving in a breeze
I hadn't even noticed.

Next morning, I step off the Olive,
pull my name tag out of my purse
as the ants climb around inside the bone
scaling those brittle, arid canyons,
in search of oases of grease.

A Midnight Smoke on the Porch

2010-03-06T12:59:00.000-08:00

I can see why no one really wants to give this up:
the tongue burning as though with wisdom,
the tongue that feels rough as a cat's,
the fingers that gesture with controlled flame,
a daydreaming conductor in the night.
It's an excuse to spend seven full minutes
staring at the moon.

Just me on the stoop, a little maudlin.
I imitate how you used to hold your cigarette.
I can feel in my body
when I borrow your gestures
how you must have felt then, young
and sexy in your thrift store finds,
your mod gold velvet,

coffee and cigarettes at three a.m.,
a girl at your side, a whole
lifetime to talk. The only reason
to ever get up from the table
was the cigarette vending machine,
its emerald green glow in the lobby.
Complimentary matches at the cashier's.

Do you remember that diner?
Has death made an improbable angel of you?
Can you see and recall everything
without pain? Or is death
the cessation of memory, and isn't
that the point
of suicide?

Who am I to say? Only
your insomniac ex. I'd like to think
I come and go for you in intervals of light,
just a small bright thing in the darkness,
the way your memory envelops me like smoke,
the way my hands, just for now, smell like you.

Front Stoop Poem for You, Two Days After Your Death

2010-03-06T12:35:00.000-08:00

The starlings are going
through their stilted motions, hunting
and pecking and gathering. This one troops
down the rain-sputtered sidewalk--
in his jaw, a piece
of spring's profuse litter,
a cluster of seedlings.
For a nest, I suppose.
I don't know why I tell you this.
You never liked starlings. You despised them.
They were loud, like the drunks you served.
You'd close down the pub, get home
at five a.m., lie in bed with the sheet
over your face, and wish
you could shoot them
one by one.
They blackened the tree outside your window, screamed
just to see the sun.

I should think of something nicer to write
than how you hated cute little birdies.
You were my friend
for thirteen years. I should come up
with something better. I could write
what you loved: me, for example,
Diamond Dogs by David Bowie,
squirrels and fine scotch,
chicken curries from Pho Grand,
slingers from the Buttery,
the green velvet dress you got for me
from the AmVets Thrift Store on Grand--
you loved that place--and thick stacks
of pancakes from Uncle Bill's,
your mom's collard greens with bacon,
your granny's macaroni and cheese--
you ate more than anyone I ever met,
all one hundred-fifteen pounds of you--
you loved snow globes, Scrabble, your nieces,
silk ties from the twenties,
prank calls, Jimmy Stewart,
your blue bowling shirt...

The list isn't you. Nor is this poem,
which, I know, is kind of long.
Nothing is you but you, and
you're gone, but that just can't be,
so I stare at the starlings
who have survived you,
all their days spent in tiny motions
of sustenance. I resent all the people
on my street who aren't you.
I give them the St. Louis Stink-Eye
just because they have the nerve to exist.

I turn the ring you gave me
on my bony finger, the only ring
that ever fit. I wait on the stoop
for your friend to pick me up
to go through your things, to find
a shirt for you to wear to your funeral.
I think I'll wear the sexy green dress
with extravagantly high heels.
It's not appropriate, but neither were you.

Today it's cold, and the car is late,
so I keep writing, and the poem
doesn't end. I don't want
it to. Besides,
I don't know how.

Natural Causes

2010-03-06T12:25:00.000-08:00

I had to live long enough to perfect my own funeral.
I'd saved my pennies for an open bar
at the chapel, only rail liquors,
no cheap shit. You only die once.
I'd saved my sequins
for the just-so
little black dress.

I'd spent every Sunday
of the last year of my life
rolling out rugelach dough,
that, and sewing on sequins.
It turns out rugelach
thaws very nicely.

I'd spent every Saturday night
accumulating suitors
so I would have plenty of mourners, men
to cry and shuffle their feet,
clutch the pale stems of flowers
in clammy palms,
clench and unclench their handsome jaws,
clean-shaven for once. They wish
they had treated me better.
Tattooed and virgin-skinned,
beer-bellied and svelte in their suits,
blonde and red-headed and bald,
they look sideways at each other
over my plain pine box.
They drink and hope my family
doesn't still hate them.

My friends whisper: She really could
pick em. Some guests
get in fist fights, of course,
a few ties loosened and rugelach-stained...
But after a few tears, a little blood,
some loose petals, people sigh.

They say things like,
I'm sorry. They say,
I wouldn't go...They say,
I have work
in the morning.
So they go.

One final man sticks around
to turn off the lights.

We are alone in the dark, fragrant
with living white jonquils,

each bunch in its world
of sugary water.

He pats my hand, the naked ring finger.
Each vase will be spilled

with the sun.

Poems About Love, Death, and Chicken Bones

2010-03-06T11:59:00.000-08:00

I am posting some poems today. If you like them, check out the literary magazines and small presses that originally published them.

"Natural Causes" appeared in my all-time favorite literary journal, Criminal Class Review (criminalclasspress.com), which publishes work by "emotionally damaged people...scumbag elite."

"A Midnight Smoke on the Porch" appeared in Literal Chaos, a lit-rag for the landlocked writers (literalchaos.com).

"Temp Girl Waiting on the 91 Olive" and "Blue Like an Orange" appeared in my chapbook of poems about food and sex, My Hot Little Tomato (cherrypiepress.blogspot.com).

"Front Stoop Poem for You, Two Days After Your Death" appeared in Untamed Ink, Lindenwood University's literary journal (www.lindenwood.edu/untamedink).

Spring 2010 Readings

2010-03-06T11:54:00.000-08:00

Anne Earney and I will read at the Meramec Writing Festival on Wed., Apr. 7th from 12-12:50 p.m in the library. The theme this year is creative writing about health care. Anne is a contributor to my book Are We Feeling Better Yet? Women Speak About Health Care in America. This reading is also free, as are all Writing Festival events. Books will be available for sale at $20 apiece.

I'll also be reading with writers from Fast Geek Press, which publishes punk fiction, poetry, music and other weird, wonderful stuff at the Holiday Club in Chicago on Fri., Apr. 23rd at 7:30. Here's who else is reading: John Franklin Dandridge, Brian Polk, Rik Villanueva, Krystle Ratticus, Charles Griller, and Charly "the city mouse" Fasano. Free, booze available, 21 and over only. See fastgeekpress.com.

Late November Events

2009-11-18T15:41:00.001-08:00

Mon., Nov. 23rd, 7:30 pm: I read with Michael Rothenberg, David Meltzer, and others at Lindenwood University's Cultural Center Auditorium. That's 209 S. Kingshighway, St. Charles, MO 63133. This is to celebrate Untamed Ink, a literary journal Lindenwood publishes. The reading is free; copies of the journal will be for sale.

Wed., Nov. 25th, 7:30 pm: I read with James Stone Goodman, Lauren Keefer, and Trent Logic Ramsey at Atomic Cowboy, a bar in the Grove neighborhood, on Manchester between Sarah and Boyle. This is part of the Voices from the Underground series that happens on the 4th Wed. of every month there. There will also be live music, and a film called Heartland Transport. I don't think there's a cover, but I could be wrong. There will be copies of my chapbook for sale, plus, of course, booze.

Hope to see you there!

Upcoming Readings/Literary Parties/Talks

2009-10-12T20:22:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, Oct. 27th: Literal Chaos and Bad Shoe Party at Cranky Yellow! Literal Chaos will include my poem "A Midnight Smoke on the Porch" in its "Fire" issue. Literal Chaos and Bad Shoe are two of St. Louis' newest, hippest (i.e., not stodgy) literary journals, edited by talented, young, tough girls Amanda Wells and Erin Wiles respectively. Anyway, there will be readings at Cranky Yellow, which is a shop, zine and junk store, art gallery, and general cabinet of wonders at 2847 Cherokee St., St. Louis, MO 63118. These musicians/bands will also play: Humdrum, Jennifer McDaniel, and the Skekses. The event is free; buy a journal or three, and/or make a donation. BYOB. You will probably see stuff at Cranky Yellow you want to buy, for example, maybe my chapbook of poems, My Hot Little Tomato. Remember that Cherokee St. is like the Wild West: no plastic, a cash economy. For more info, see: crankyyellow.com, literalchaos.com, and stlouisprojects.org.

Tuesday, Nov. 10th: Corinne McAfee, a contributor to my anthology Are We Feeling Better Yet? Women Speak About Health Care in America, and I speak about women, aging, and the power of creative writing to bring about healing and build community. This is an OWL (Voices of Women Midlife and Older) event at Ladue Chapel, St. Louis. The event is free; copies of the anthology will be for sale. For more information, see: owlstlouis.com.

Friday, Nov. 13th: I read from Are We Feeling Better Yet? at the National Women Studies Association, Atlanta, GA, 12-12:30. For more information, see: nwsa.org.

Saturday, Nov. 14th: I present on the power of personal narratives to bring about healing and build community at the National Women Studies Association, Atlanta, GA. This is a poster presentation in the afternoon. For more information, see: nwsa.org.

Monday, Nov. 23rd: I read, along with David Meltzer, Michael Rothenberg, and other poets from the literary journal Untamed Ink, at Lindenwood University, Lindenwood Cultural Center Auditorium, St. Charles, MO, 7:30 p.m.

I Have a Website; I Exist

2009-10-12T20:14:00.000-07:00

Recently a young woman said she wanted me to read for her series, but--"I looked you up online," she said breathlessly, "and you didn't have a website!" It was clear that she was shocked, and I knew that the fault was mine. Be it good, bad, or peculiar, it seems obvious that these days, one does not exist unless documented and presented online. As I have books, readings, talks, literary parties, variety shows, poems, vignettes, and other odd bits of musings and mental meanderings I would like to share with you, dear reader, it is only right that I have a website, so here it is. For whomever may be so inclined to peek in on this cluttered room that is my literary life, that is to say my only life, I will try to keep this updated, at the very least, with upcoming readings and events, and recent publications online and in print where you can read my work.