Patchwork Thursday Poem

Hey! It's Patchwork Thursday. Since I didn't have enough "other people poems" to work with, I used a poem each from five of my favorite poets: Julia Alvarez, Sandra Cisneros, Ana Castillo, Lucia Perillo, and Judith Ortiz Cofer. There is a definite feel to this poem, a haunting, sort of sad tone. Yet, the feminine strength which is one of my favorite aspects of Latina poetry is also present. * (For more info on women poets, check out Poetry Collections by Women.)

It may sound easy, this casting together of disparate lines of other people's poetry, and maybe it is for some, but for me, it is a careful process, much like creating a collage. You can snag a bunch of found objects, slather some glue on them and call it finished, but to give a piece feeling, emotion and cohesion, sometimes you need to sit with all the parts, move them around, and even, sometimes, let them fall where they choose.

If you would like to offer a poem for other poets to work with, leave a link to your poem in the comments section here. If we have at least four poems offered up to work with, next Thursday I will post my new patchwork poem and you all can leave links to your patchwork poems!

No Exit - A Patchwork Poem

There is no exiting unscathed: a delicacy, we say,
by a dozen senoritas
who died a death of voodoo.
How charitable to call it fruit, when almost nothing
improves my bad reputation.
I was born under a crooked star,
and become one with the molecules.
I ask the impossible: love me forever,
a slender girk with a basket
inviting all the demons that reside in dark damp
say-your-last-prayers roads.
Give her instead the kind of nourishment
to be born woman in a family of men.
The delectable stink of danger discovered,
the men lured away to the cities
and only a girl like Eve could be so blank a slate.