Some of my work:

I'll submit a poem of my own to start with. Please feel free to email responses and criticisms of this poem to my address, listed below. I'll post all responses.

FRUIT
by Hannah Sassaman

He was the type
to explore the texture
of grapefruit with his feet,
peeling away the thick layer
of spongy rind with his toenails.

I discovered his foot one Sunday,
dangling a piece
of fragrant yellow peel
into the pages of my New York Times Magazine.

Save it, he said,
placing a section of juice-bubbled fruit
into his mouth
with his other foot.

Perhaps grapefruit peel
removed with so much care
is worth saving,
dried and mixed with cream,
spread as salve on chapped lips,
or as an aphrodisiac,
mixed with wine before a fire.

At any rate,
we have grapefruit
for breakfast every Sunday,
and the cookie jar
beside the stove
smells of dried citrus.

12/16/97
Here's a response to FRUIT I got from Franklin D. Lantz:
Ms. Sassaman,

Fruit is good poem. I loved it. It conjured up many questions about these people's situation, their life, their personalities, which I enjoyed thinking about. The poem is interesting, quirky (the strength of the poem is not from being quirky, though, which is good), complete.
(One word I didn't like was fruit in the phrase `juice-bubbled fruit'. It is not a big quibble, it is just that when I read it I get hung-up on the word. It interrupts the flow. And it has very good flow.)
I would love to read more of your work. Please keep it up.

Franklin D. Lantz
franklin@methode.com

11/20/97
Here's another one for your consideration:

glossary:
tallis -- fringed prayer shawl... traditionally worn by men
yad -- a tool used for keeping one's place when reading the Torah (bible)
shul -- synagogue
sukkah -- hut... built to celebrate a harvest festival in October


tallis bag
by Hannah Sassaman

inside, a tallis, of course, pink and
silver. to some the fringed cloth
is for dress up, like the brimmed
red hat I wore from a plastic
chest when I was three years old.

but anyway, also a yad, wooden. it
came from israel, and was a gift from
rebecca, who had red hair when we
were both thirteen. under the tallis,
memories of a spotty attendance
at a rich and loved and opulent suburban shul.

two soft candies from a bar mitzvah.
the party afterwards was decorated in blue
and grey, the crepe matching the tablecloths
and bouquets of ribbon and chocolate sticks on
each of our luncheon tables.

but also a folded note from the rabbi, thanking
me for helping to build the shul sukkah
on a cold sunday morning. i held
a splintering ladder against the wall. my
father heaped branches and cornstalks above
me. it was wet out. the air smelled like rain
and leaves. inside were warm cider and doughnuts.

and now my hand, folded, clutching these wrinkled
memories, feeling the zipper of the bag scratch
the skin of my wrist.

12/14/97

Here's one I've been working with for a while. I'll post part of an analysis I've done of it (I analyze my own poetry... what a weirdo I am!) to explain the context. It's part of a Greek myth.


I wrote AUTONOE after reading Euripedes' THE BACCHAE for an English class. The translation was by a man named Bagg; I loved the rhythm he lent to the speeches of the chorus of maenads. The free verse moved thickly, roughly; illustrating the raw power of women unleashed. Agave was the mother of Pentheus; a hapless would-be hero killed at the hands of the maenads and seduced by the wine god Bacchus. The drunken women, led by Agave herself, tore Pentheus limb from limb after he penetrated their revels, dressed as a woman. Agave later parades Pentheus's head about the palace of Thebes on a stick, thinking in her hypnosis that her son was really a lion she had wrestled to the ground and destroyed. Autonoe, the title character of my poem, was the sister of Agave. Her son was also torn to shreds in a foolish accident -- the hunting dogs of the virginal goddess Artemis tore him apart after he watched her bathe in a forest pond.

The tragic sympathy and resentment between the sisters was hard to ignore. I wanted to write about it.

I tried to capture some of the crazed grief these sisters must have felt at the illogical loss of their sons, but also the difference between new and old pain. The verses fall into a rough three-metered pattern:


autonoe

you don't have to tell me again, agave
why you are carrying bloody blonde hairs
wrapped in that wrinkled ivy, i know,
memories of that sorority party.

out in the hills beyond town, i cried, too.
through the leaves, following weeping red pawprints.
i saw the dogs sleeping, and i knew their bellies
were rounded with most of my still-steaming son.

but what did you do when the belly, agave,
was yours, and it ached in the memory of
having held the young lion you killed for a god?

i know too, what it is, having them wander
just inches beyond your fingertips.

we couldn't protect them for long, agave.


11/17/97, 2:30 PM
OK, I'm going home to wintry Rochester tomorrow! Here's a poem in memory/appreciation of that:
snow angels
by hannah sassaman

we were cushioned in the cold
air as much as the snow, the flakes
falling white against white
blurred the difference. maybe

snow isn't water and dust at all,
but air smoothed into walls of
crystal. our snowsuits were
blue, or turquoise, faded with

slush water at the edges of the
hoods. my mittens were pink, and
hers were green. the nylon creaked
as we moved, kneeling colors in the

white, settling into the snow. i
believed truly and with a deep faith
that these snowflakes spilled out
of an open heaven, the sand of beaches

whiter than anything, the simplest
solid form of angel's music. we sang
ourselves into a quiet lull, flakes falling
into our throats as our voices rose from them.

2:03 AM, Wednesday, January 14, 1998

Happy New Year, all!

Actually, the Jewish New Year always falls in the autumn. But, hey, this is the date I put on all my blue books at school.

I've joined a new poetry forum full of MFA candidates, graduates, and general brilliant poetry buffs! Check it out:

Visit Zeugma

A new poem or two will be up soon... I promise.


3:24 PM, Thursday, January 15
As promised, a new poem! Tell me what you think.
pocketwatch

by hannah sassaman

i remembered your pocketwatch
last, the glint of yellow lamplight
as you glanced at it, before
shutting the swollen door.

you owned me as honestly
as your watch, and i felt
as smooth against the palm
of your hand as that warm metal,
bound to you by the same delicate chain.

i told something even simpler than
the time, something that didn't change
or darken with the seasons of the year.

how disappointed you were that
i couldn't be reset, though i felt
the tightness of your fingers
fumbling at the broken switch.




April 24... what time IS it??


Here's another poem:

I Am Roughly Familiar


I am roughly familiar with
The work of G-d.

I have seen His trees and
Some of His mountains.

When sleeping at the wheel, I
Felt the gentle pull of
Two fingers at my chin, where
My head met my neck in
A low grumble.

I am roughly familiar with
The work of G-d.


Sunday, May 10, 11:10 PM
A new poem:

thanks

thank you for smoothing
your hands. your palms
were rough and heavy
and your fingers hard
with writing callus.

thank you for swallowing
your silent question and
soaking your hands in
my perfumed lotion.

later, i wondered myself.
it seemed as if my own
fingers were touching me,
without the distinction of
your nails tracing their
scratch-pattern on my skin.

what is smoothness but
a lack of distinction,
love without signature pain?

still, you smoothed away
your character without a
question. many thanks.




Sunday, May 24, 11:50 PM

Well, I'm in Rochester for a few weeks before I return to Philadelphia to work for the summer. I've had a good amount of time to write. What do y'all think?


knot

who can knot
hair like night?

(she knows that
girl-children long

for smoothness,
neatness. she

ties my hair in
wet plaits. the

tight curls quiet
their insistency

under the tapestry of
night-black braids.)



July 15, 1998... 6:10 pm, according to my watch, NOT the untrustworthy computerclocks in the Van Pelt Library Lab!!

Okay, I'm over that. But REALLY, all the computers in this school give you the wrong time. Grr.

Here's a slightly controversial one I've been working on...

cinderella

i imagine cinderella and her
stepsisters as the subject
of a tabloid fairy tale, steeped

in salt-juiciness -- local girl
makes good, bangs the prince
and wins a lottery of silks

and impossible glass slippers.
page six: sisters steamed.
tragic accident of turtledoves

and branches outside the
palace. exclusive photos.
of course, the tragedy lies

with the eldest stepsister --
searching in the cinders for
rotten lentils still, months

into cinderella's apple-ripe
fecundity with her sun-browned
prince. men came by, yes.

don't they always believe that
money falls into family laps?
the girl remembers one in

a rush of blurred rough cloth,
a merchant of something or
other who took her into the kitchen,

sexing her in methods very
different from a barefoot palace ball.
of course, our cinderella earned

her fairy godmothership as well.
those aprons, black-rag corsets
fitting tightly, cindermarks of ash

on sculpted legs. the older daughter
saw a field of stubble on the fairy's
face. who knew what really happened

as the family went shopping at the mall?
the girl suspected over tea and scones
the next day at the palace. she's too ripe,

the pregnancy too blossoming. of course,
the girl considered, she would screw a fairy too
-- if granted the oblivion of happy ever after.


Wednesday, July 29, 1998
5:40 PM
Philadelphia is hot. So, I cut my hair incredibly short on Monday. Then, I wrote a poem about it. Here it is:

HAIRCUT
For those trying this at home, remember:
the china doll stylist won't believe you.
Show her the tomboy, short-cut in the slick magazine.
Grin, as if a yellow smile pointed at mascara-lined eyes
could win you this woman's favors.

Remember too the intimacy of shampoo:
fingertips to scalp, a blending of oils and water.
You feel vaguely like a cigarette
as you are led, dripping, to the metal chair.

You carry regret in your purse like birth control,
but wisely keep it pocketed as the fragrant
foot-long licks of brown fall to the floor.
It's probably best to imagine you feel lighter as you listen
to a conversation between dead cells and sterling scissors.

Promise you won't look until she's finished,
but run your fingers, wet along a wet scalp,
as she turns to choose a bottle of pomade:
the length and texture mutable and loose,
like love half done.


November 7, 1998
7:56 PM
Waiting until the end of my shift before I go to a party with my newly baked apple pie...

I work at the Writer's House here at Penn, and I was unlucky enough to pull this week's Saturday 6-12 shift! Aaa! So, I'm biding my time until closing by editing my homepage. Some more poems for you:


LESSON

Yah yauh yaugh yaw. The difference
An opening, a lift at the back

Of the throat. Large enough
To melt a sugar cube, she says.

So the back of a spoon could sit
On your tongue and still rim

Your bottom teeth, the voice teacher
Says. Or two fingers, she says.

So your jaw falls almost slack.
Yah. Yauh. Yaugh.



Sonnet on a Reading of Jane Eyre

The dour and poor deserve a chance, and Jane's
Not bad, a little tight, a little small
For Rochester, malevolent and plain.
The setting fits the girl, but all in all,
She pleases me, the nascent growth within
Of objectivity, the graceless charm
Of linen gloves in barter for a sin.
I see the couple still: they're arm in arm,
Though blind, he still insists on leading her
Into the house. It's here I know that love
Is power: Jane the eyes, and Rochester
The virile puppet. Charlotte knew: above
The rest, her story was controlled: complete
Because a triumph rots when over-sweet.


December 28, 12:59 AM -- Home for Break

So -- after another semester of deliberate sabotage to my grades, my job, my friends, and my emotional well-being (it's not really that bad, but a night of television and The Best American Short Stories of 1998 has depressed me considerably) I am home for a week of reflection, and, a bit of writing. Here's a selection based on growing up with my darling twin sister, Esther:

TWINS

I remember us together at the mirror,
Two pink blurs winged by brown hair,
Both of us blind without glasses,
Both of us parted white without a comb.

I remember the weight of the toothbrush,
The grit of the paste on the bristles
I remember talk from the throat
Through plastic on teeth and mint foam.

Two sinks, four hands on cold oval porcelain,
Two steel faucets polished to distortion,
One image by a chipped white door,
One in front of a shower and toilet.

I remember our mutual dread of school, but
How the minutes at the mirror still were minutes.
I remember shedding clothes until we were both naked,
Hairless, lipped, waiting for the shower.



Another Poem For You.
Thursday, January 7, 1999, 2:29 PM Skies are sunny, air is cold.

Here's one I wrote last night after enjoying some girly alcohol (a few bottles of kiwi-strawberry wine coolers). Some friends and I were staying up all night to send off our friend Brooke, who is going to France for a semester to study... French, I suppose, and international relations. She'll be living with a 20 year old French boy and his mom. Whoo! Anyway, we stayed up late and I got up less than an hour ago. Here's the poem -- I always wax religious when under the influence:

I SAT WITH A LITURGY IN THE GRASS

Meaning I sat worded and
Shaded, prepared to enter the
Ritual, the prayer tongued,
God worded for page and voice,

But instead of lisping or lilting
The praise as best I could, I
Sat still in the prickled stalks,
The night blowing soft breath
And mosquitoes upon me.


May 1, 6:30 AM

In a writing frenzy. Writing letters, pieces of my play, explanations of pieces of my play which will prove valuable when I have to make it a thesis, whooo. Here's a small poem I wrote and don't think I like or understand:

AMERICA

America isn't color. I've seen hands
Stained with ink, I promise you that.
Ink is blue, and it's too dark
To show black or yellow or red or white
.
Boy, this country is done in ink.
Look at the maps.
All the things we believe in,
Like borders and roads,
And democracy,
Are done in blue ink.

There is no such thing
As an invisible man.
Maybe he's just soaked to the core
In invisible ink.

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