Karyna McGlynn

Karyna McGlynn Poems

the live oak over the nursery got a disease
they could only save one limb
it wasn't surprising; it wasn't that kind of nursery
...

It's no wonder I'm always tired with all these tract houses—
It's night & cold
on my belly in the undeveloped field now
...

the termites had deboned the thing
it was clean there was no saving it

in one bedroom a dresser with blue drawers
...

Karyna McGlynn Biography

Poet Karyna McGlynn grew up in Austin, Texas, and earned a BA at Seattle University and an MFA at the University of Michigan. She received a Presidential Fellowship for her doctoral studies at the University of Houston. Her debut collection, I Have to Go Back to 1994 and Kill a Girl (2009), won the Kathryn A. Morton Prize from Sarabande Books. Her work has been featured in the anthology Best American Nonrequired Reading (2010). McGlynn uses psychological ephemera, pop culture, and improvisational plot to investigate danger and human longing. “Part film noir, part horror flick, these innovative poems dwell in the cul-de-sac badlands where crimes and heinous misdeeds are recurring,” noted Karla Huston in Library Journal. “McGlynn […] offers poems in alternating views while tangling reality, time, and space.” In an interview for SHARKFORUM, McGlynn noted the importance of temporality to her work: “The past is always present in my writing. […] We are not purely products of our own time—we are a decoupage of memories, both individual and shared.” A member of five former National Poetry Slam teams, McGlynn has served as the organizer of the Houston Indie Book Fest and as managing editor of Gulf Coast. Founding coeditor of the poetry journal Linelinelineline, she lives in Houston.)

The Best Poem Of Karyna McGlynn

A Red Tricycle in the Belly of the Pool

the live oak over the nursery got a disease
they could only save one limb
it wasn't surprising; it wasn't that kind of nursery

a girl rode her red tricycle around the bottom of the pool
the pool had no water; it hadn't rained

the girl kept smelling her hand
it smelled like honeywheat, or the inside of a girl's panties

someone said, race you
she nodded okay and pedaled like hell
after three laps no one had passed her

she looked over her shoulder, lost her balance
ripped her hands & knees on the blue concrete

the one limb on the live oak curved like a question
would she need stitches again

there was already ink under her skin & iodine on her tongue
or was it the other way around

she could see black thread bunching
sewing centipedes under her skin

her throat burned and she couldn't move her legs
it wasn't a tricycle
it was something she couldn't get her foot out from under

she hated to stop or lose her shoe and, I'm sorry
the pool was full of water

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