Marilyn Kallet and TS Eliot and My So Called Life

"Good poetry can communicate before it's understood" T.S. Eliot

Poetry Monday

not memory, not memory

"the
fragment
has more to

do with
nature
than not"

bicoastal rush
oak to eucalyptus
aye-ayeing green coins

cliches don't
tremble

and I hold on to that?

fragrant cells
wavering

save me from hating

honestly, there is
identity in
me, like an oak
tree-- no, really,

really,
a little click-child





"its the terror and the way
you are falling out"


Marilyn Kallet, UT professor


I was given this poem in Mrs. Hartman's creative writing class my sophomore year in high school. As TS Eliot is right: Good poetry can communicate before its understood. And here I am, 8 years later, still no idea what this poem means. But as our friend Angela on My So Called Life reminds us, Sometimes someone says something really small and it fits right into that little place in your heart. That's how I feel about this one. I've only met Marilyn once and almost geeked out because I knew had her poem in my shoebox and in my brain for years. That's where you keep things you dont' want to lose, you know, that and those little places in your heart.