Jennifer Wheelock

Lines by a Short-Haired Poet at a Poetry Reading

A poet’s hair, it seems to me,
has not to do with prosody,
but I have come to be aware
that women poets like their hair.
From Jorie Graham to those less known
the look preferred is overblown
and never tucked behind an ear
to make their lines of vision clear.
Here in my chair I twist and fret
and think to offer a barrette
to calm the storm around her head
and ease my growing sense of dread
that swirls of curls will cloud each word
and all she reads will go unheard.
And yet I tangle with self-doubt:
Maybe I should grow mine out.

< back | next >

 

Jennifer Wheelock’s poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies, most recently The Peralta Press, Atlanta Review, The Emily Dickinson Award Anthology, and the online journal Blaze. She was second prize winner in the Art in the Air Poetry Contest and a semi-finalist in the Steel Toe Books competition. Her poem “Feeding Francis Bacon” appeared in the book Thirteen Ways of Looking for a Poem: A Guide to Writing Poetry, in the chapter on formal verse. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with a lot of dogs.