Alicia Ostriker

Alicia Ostriker is a poet-critic who has published twelve volumes of poetry, has been twice a National Book Award finalist, and teaches in the low-residency program in Poetry and Poetry Translation at Drew University.

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Photo by JP Ostriker

THE BLESSING OF THE OLD WOMAN, THE TULIP AND THE DOG

To be blessed

said the old woman

is to have so many

grandchildren

God’s love

washes right through you

like milk through a cow

To be blessed

said the dark red tulip

is to knock their eyes out

with the slug of lust

implied by

your up-ended

skirt

To be blessed

said the dog

is to have a pinch

of God

inside you

and all the other dogs

can smell it

The Book of Seventy, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009.

STREAM-ENTERING

Though reluctant

when his mother insists

            on joining the sangha

the Buddha admits

women too are capable

            of stream-entering

reading these words

it is not that suddenly

            I enter the stream

it is more that I become

aware of its coolness and of

            myself pleasantly wading

then the sea appears

heaving between continents

            grey, horizonless

death-cold currents

day and night, and I

            would be a drop

 The Book of Seventy, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009.   

DEMETER TO PERSEPHONE

I watched you walking up out of that hole

All day it had been raining

in that field in Southern Italy

rain beating down making puddles in the mud

hissing down on rocks from a sky enraged

I waited and was patient

finally you emerged and were immediately soaked

you stared at me without love in your large eyes

that were filled with black sex and white powder

but this is what I expected and when I embraced you

Your firm little breasts against my amplitude

Get in the car I said

and then it was spring 

The Book of Seventy, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009.

Writer's Tip:  Read voraciously.  Memorize poems.  And write what you are afraid to write.

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