jessingrassellino

Category: poetry

  • Night at Beachy Head

    jess ingrassellino, summer 2019

    They hadn’t asked to be there, those

    sharp stones at the bottom of Beachy Head.

    But the stones knew some things about

    humans.

    Gangly humans waited until dusk,

    finding their way to the cliff’s edge

    on the flat grassy path. The

    Wind coaxed humans closer to the edge,

    Where the stones had the best view.

    Looking up, those old stones got hit by

    a phone, tossed over the edge, by a human.

    The human – this time a girl –

    Wailed in pain and screamed goodbye,

    Throwing herself over soon after.

    The stones and cliffs noticed:

    Humans aren’t very good at emotions.

    Terrible at grief and loss. Worse at deciding

    What to do about it.

    The sharp stones and white cliffs were

    Stained red more frequently than one might think –

    Twenty times per year if the numbers added up right.

    More often, though, the stones saw

    Sadness – in a dangling foot,

    or an anxious glance,

    cast in their direction –

    pebbles kicked over the edge into the waves below.

    If the stones could shout back at the girl,

    after she launched her phone,

    but before she’d launched herself,

    maybe they’d tell her that

    nothing had gone better for those who had gone before.

  • The Call

    jess ingrassellino, july 2019

    Brushed off again. She’ll always be his second best, silver medal. First loser. “First loser” she chuckles out loud, in spite of herself. Pulls the Egyptian cotton sheet around her naked body. Soft, smooth, crisp fall air rushes in waves over her skin. Relief, for a moment, but she keeps turning over details of the last time she saw him.

    “I’ll call him tomorrow.”

    She’s lecturing herself now, head in hand. Bites her lower lip and considers her options. She doesn’t like the idea of telling anybody anything. Never did. Her jaw hurts. She’s grinding her teeth – front teeth when she’s awake, molars when she’s asleep – she stops herself and takes a deep breath, but can’t escape the anxiety.

    They’ve been planning, halfheartedly, to be more serious. She wants it, he’s not sure. “Commitment-phobe,” she grumbles, tossing over again. Bright moon, muted by sheer pink curtains. Curtains flapping open, intermittently, with the breeze. She wants to be his only. Married. Before she was twenty-nine, it never felt important to consider a serious partner, much less marriage, family, or children. But tonight? Tonight, twenty-nine is ancient and life is horribly unpredictable. Unfair. Tonight, everything that’s never mattered matters, and everything that’s ever mattered feels like a waste.

    On her dresser, her violin sits in its stand, untouched since she found out. Normally she practices daily, several hours a day. Lately, she wipes it gently with a soft cloth, leaves it out to try and coax herself out of her anxiety. Six months ago, he watched her prepare for auditions, and four months ago she’d learn she’d made the symphony. Now, she’s not sure about the trajectory. “If this is my time, how will I spend it? And what will make it matter?” She stares at ceiling, glancing back and forth between the shadows from tree limbs dancing and the moon creating them.

    She will call him tomorrow. After work. She’ll call him, and tell him, because she’s already delayed too long. Now, though, the call weighs on her mind, creeping steadily into her body. Her legs twitch – the left leg, really. The rough patch of skin on her left heel hits her right shin bone as she tosses again, to face away from the moon and closing her eyes.

  • Two Poems: Sketches of St. Petersburg

    jess ingrassellino, june 2019

    I read Spouts (1921), an earlier poem by William Carlos Williams. I enjoy his first person, direct, and conversational writing style. This poem, like many of his others that I have read, is a single experience written in fragments, making up just one sentence. There is a lot of economy in the way that Williams expresses experience, and there are new stories to be uncovered with repeated reading of his work. These two poems are my first assignment from my first writing class in June, 2019.

    St. Petersburg (May 15, 2019)

    Monument, 

    Taller than the other buildings – it seems, 

    Taller than everything. 

    Guarding the circle, the 

    Subway, the  

    twin buildings 

    Flanking the road 

    into the city. 

    Her dual histories stand, 

    Signed – Piter and Leningrad –  

    Overlooking the city and 

    Her history.  

    In the taxi, I 

    enter.

    The Serfs (May 16, 2019)

    Today, we saw the 

    Yellow building, 

    Three stories high, where

    Serfs were sold.

    Today, the 

    Red roof and clean

    Archways 

    Frame the view from the 

    Second story windows, where

    Tourists can see the 

    Seven bridges when they look

    Outside from the

    Safety of their rooms at the 

    Holiday Inn Express.

  • The Gate (Nooner)

    This poem is after a close reading of the poem The Storm (Bear), by Mary Oliver. I focused intentionally on attempting to replicate the rhythm and meter Oliver chose, as well as other grammatical choices she made, such as tense and sentence structure. Find the poem and my close reading below

    The Gate (Nooner)

    New upon the shaky gate my kitten
        climbs, crying determined mews
        with new confidence.

    Spine and tail, wriggling, anxious,
        her view of the top, she claws, grasps
    Until the gate’s cloth divider freys
        in small, delicate pieces,
        An early warning foreshadowing
        the struggles of my mind in this world.

    You know, I didn’t see it coming myself.

    Close Reading and Notes


    Reading Mary Oliver’s original poem The Storm (Bear) and working from it caught me by surprise, because in my first reading, it seemed simple. That simplicity is deceptive upon closer reading. As I worked to tell the story of my kitten, Nooner, I noticed that Oliver’s poem’s simplicity was quite intentional and well-crafted.

    Oliver sets up the reader with the scene, setting, and details, using familiar and causal language that make it easy to connect with a scene between animal and human. In the second stanza, Oliver expands on the narrative set in the first, connecting the verb in the first stanza to the three parts of the second stanza.

    The first part of the second stanza, Oliver describes and expands on the verb; in the second part, she reveals the ending or aftermath of the action/verb; in the third section, she uses metaphor to relate the experience of the animal in that moment to the human experience. In Oliver’s poem, she uses the following as the third section of the second stanza:

         a long sentence, expressing
         the pleasures of the body in this world

    In the third stanza, she responds to the metaphor she has expressed with her own voice and feelings on the matter.

    Normally, I try to use the overall tone, grammar choices, and narrative structure of a work as a guide to my study, but it felt important for me to discover how Oliver crafted such a beautiful work that resonated with clarity and beauty, leaving the reader with feelings both simple and profound. I’m glad I spent time with this poem and worked to attempt to understand how Oliver constructed such a poem. I enjoyed this week’s etude, and I hope you enjoy Mary Oliver’s poem, as well as my own attempts to learn from her work.