Cheryl McBryde

360
Santa Anita
Mom and Ginny find seats in the stands. We skip down the stairs, make our
way to the bathroom where a nice black lady in a white dress gives us candy
from her pocket, a toothy smile. We run downstairs, crawl under elephant ear
leaves, like canopies of green over our heads. We are invisible. We crawl
behind benches where the unaware sit oblivious. Until one of us giggles, then
we run. We find the dark tunnel under the track, there are gnomes painted
on the walls. They leer, we hear them jeering at us, we run faster. Their eyes
are following us! Breathing hard, out into the light, we see swings, a
sandbox. The smell of popcorn, cotton candy, hot dogs, teases and taunts.
The announcer calls the ninth race, time to head back. We hold hands, we
run, dont look at them! We laugh. We cross our fingers. Just hope she didnt
lose it all.
Up in the stands again, we join mom and Ginny and the throng of shufflers,
moving toward the exit, eyes that stare ahead, eyes that look down. They
had all been tricked. By the pansies and hydrangeas, the topiary. The
Disneyland clean. Jockeys in shimmering silks, horses glisten, shimmy and
snort, their heads held high. What a spectacle. It all enticed. By the time
anyone noticed the cigarette butts, the losing tickets, the lost souls, it was
too late. They had already placed their bets.

Del Mar
Our favorite. It was right next to the beach. Impatient, we snuck out the
gates, two sisters, 8 and 9 years old. We climbed over the railroad tracks,
followed inlet out to ocean. We were fearless. We had not seen Jaws; we
swam out past the breakers. We rode the waves to shore. We lay in the sun
and wind dried. Sandy bottomed, salty lipped, we raced back over the tracks
hoping to find mom or Ginny with that look on their faces, that triumphant,
victorious look. They looked like everyone else though, defeated. Where
have you two been? We heard the trumpet, the last race was about to begin.
The horses were at the gate, and they were off! We jumped up, down, yelled
for moms horse to run faster, faster. We got in the car for the two-hour drive
home, stopped for clam chowder at Pic-a-Dilly. We never told mom that I
panicked when I looked down, couldnt see the bottom. That if it hadnt had
been for some guy seeing a flailing girl in the water, and pulling her out
No, we didnt say a word.
What I Remember
I remember days
at the racetrack.
Blowing of trumpet,
pounding of hooves,
of my heart.
Sometimes, she let me pick the horse.

I remember a night on the beach.

Pic-a-Dilly clam chowder,
catching grunion by moonlight.
White-capped waves kissed shore,
leaving flashes in the sand.
We filled our little plastic pink buckets,
then gave the silver back to the sea.
.
I remember her determined walk,
when the girl down the street didnt
invite me and my sister to her party.
Her hands on her hips, she let
the girl know that she would not
be invited to any of our parties.
I wanted to die.
I remember, when I was seventeen,
sitting at the table, staring at nothing,
she told me I looked beautiful.
She knew what I needed.
I remember climbing into the hospital bed,
being between the metal side rail and
pressed up against her skin, holding her close,
feeling her shallow breathing, and
softly singing to her, a song that
I knew without learning, that seemed
a part of me from before I could remember,
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me
happy, when skies are grey
The Wildness
I cant help but think,
that the wildness of
dark oak creeps up.
The wildness deep in the soil,
seeps up into the trunks
of the walnut trees.
In their regal rows.
Orderly, guarding secrets
like sentinels.
Shameful secrets.

Desire. Greed.
A woman pushed
face down in the dirt.
Head of brown-skinned baby,
bashed against oak.
The tears of many mothers
has fed this soil.

Consider the branches of these trees.

See how they bend?
How they reach and stretch
out toward each other,
toward the earth,
toward the sky.
As if though rooted, they will not be contained.
Intelligence is based on how efficient a species became at doing the things
they need to survive.
-Charles Darwin
[After noticing that, while walking on campus, there were swarms above my
head, I went to the library and Googled]
Dragonflies, members of the order of Odonata,
evolving for three hundred million years;
hovering over the Mesozoic,
surviving the dinosaurs.
Hovering over the Cenozoic,
among our ancestors.
Still hovering.

I wonder if their eyes evolved

over time; small to bulbous, creeping
each generation, from the front
to the sides of their heads,
selected by nature to have a 360-degree view;
to have eyes that are multi-faceted
that morph 30,000 images
into one point;
to track,
target and kill.
Iridescent monsters; Efficiency epitomized,
driven by nothing but the need for nutrients.

[While driving home from school, listening to

an interview with the director of Tower, a
documentary about the first mass shooting in
American history, something said about the shooter provokes comparison]
On a hot August day in 1966
a Marine sharpshooter climbed to the observation deck
of the clock tower at the University of Texas,
giving him a 360-degree view of the campus.
He raised his rifle,
looked through the sight.
He saw red.
He tracked, targeted, killed.

Before being shot dead by two officers,

he took the lives of seventeen people,
including an unborn baby.
One of the survivors said that he realized a truth that day;
monsters live amongst us.
Yes, but who made them?
What contributed to this new piece of Americana?
This era of mass shootings,
of Columbine, Newtown,
of addiction and post-traumatic stress
of numbness?

Is this the direction we are headed?

Battered, bruised, chemically mutated
Chronically misfiring circuits,
Violently colliding.
Im thinking our days are numbered.
Weve gone deaf to
the airwaves that bombard
our senses; become background noise.
Like the high-pitched hum you dont hear
until you turn it off.

Natural selection has betrayed our species

Us homo sapiens, with our pesky emotional responses
our fragile psyche.

Still, even as we are tossed against the rocks,

I search the shoreline for lighthouses.
Claire Wilson James, the mother of the
unborn baby boy that was killed,
said that she had forgiven the shooter.
Like mothers do, she imagined him
as a little boy sitting on her lap.
She knew that he had been damaged;
that monsters are made, not born.
She adopted a baby boy,
said sometimes she forgets that
he didnt come from inside of her,
but still, she often dreams of the baby she
lost that day.

Sometimes she goes back

to where it happened.
She lays her body down, and
rests her head on the warm cement.
Authors Note
Please provide an image for what writing the poetry assignments in this class
has been like for you. For example, sometimes writing poetry assignments
for me is like a truck stuck in sand. The engine is revving; the sand is
blowing in my face; the muscles in my back are taut and straining like taffy
in the hands of a Scottish woman at the school fair; and so on.

Sometimes, writing poetry is like:

Blinded by fog and mist, I plunge to earth like Icarus, into a black and
bottomless sea. Adrift, parched, the salt-filled water tempts and taunts. It is
poison. Battered by storm, I crawl up on shore, waterlogged and wasted.
Wait for rain.
This being my second semester in poetry, I have learned that writing poetry
is something that I have to do, like, an addiction. But its hard. I struggle
every time I sit down to write. Sometimes, I fight myself, I have an idea in
mind, but it usually doesnt end up on the paper/computer screen.
Sometimes Im happily surprised by where the poem goes. Most of the time,
Im disappointed. Revise, revise, revise. That is what I have learned. When to
stop revising and be done, that, I havent quite figured out. Im also
struggling to find myself, my writing style. Over the course of the last two
semesters, I have read so many poems, each poet seems to use language
that is specific to them, I need to find my language.

What have you found useful or interesting or new or clarifying about poetry
during semester?

Ive learned so many things. I learned that a great last line I think we focused
more on breaking poems down this semester, and I found that especially
helpful. In my journal, I have detailed descriptions of certain poems, and I
know that I will refer to them in the future. For instance, we discussed in
class how the poems of Ada Limon have certain characteristics; theyre
sonnet like, they almost always include the turn, active verbs, imperative
language do this. I liked examining the odes of Sharon Olds, seeing how
she interpreted the form, Sean Hills postcard poems, and Ocean Vuongs
poems about his parents, Vietnam, and immigration. I also learned the value
of my journal, as I drew upon things I wrote last semester for some of my
poems this semester. Ive also found my word list very useful, and add to it
every day. One of my favorite additions is Solastalgia: the pain experienced
when the place one loves and where one resides is under assault. It really
resonates with our current climate!

(For revised pieces) What did you change, where will I find the changes, and
why did you make these changes?
My two pieces, Santa Anita, and Del Mar, started out as one poem that
combined details about both race tracks, but I decided that each track and
experience had enough detail to warrant their own poem. Ive been working
on these poems for a long time, in some form or another. I wrote about their
subject in my creative non-fiction class last semester. So its been a process
of trying to conjure up the feelings associated with these places and times.
The first few drafts of these poems were in stanzas, but for the final drafts,
Im attempting to do prose poems. I plan on reading more prose poems over
the summer to get a better grasp on how they work.

My poem, What I Remember has been seriously renovated. I took out the
first stanza that focused on things that I dont remember, in favor of focusing
on what I do. Im not sure if it is better or worse. Its still being remodeled. I
didnt workshop this one in class, so Im not sure if the felt ideas are coming
through. The stanza that I took out might need to be revised and put back in,
because I want to have the turn in this piece, I dont want it to be pure
nostalgia.

The Wildness has also been remodeled several times. When I originally wrote
it, it was part of our Displacement assignment, and I actually titled it
Displacement, because that is literally what happened to the trees. But a few
people that I asked like the title, The Wildness, better. Im still not sure. In
this poem, I was contemplating the history of the counties that I drive
through five days a week. I actually interviewed the owners of Burlinson fruit
stand, and found out that Mr. Burlinsons grandparents came to the area
from Oklahoma during the Great Depression. They had to leave Oklahoma
because of the dust bowl, and being kicked off of their farm. I went to the
special collections room in the Meriam Library and found transcripts of
interviews with Native Americans. That is where I found the horrible story
about the soldier swinging a baby by its feet and hitting its head on a tree. I
wanted to capture all of these stories, using the image of the orchards to
contrast with the way the land was before the Europeans came. Or somehow
connecting the farmers forced out of Oklahoma to the treatment of Native
Americans, but Im not sure if I can justify comparing those two things. I just
know that I am not happy with how it is right now. At one time, I included this
idea of the speaker talking to the trees, and through some kind of symbiotic
joining between the tree and the speaker, created images of the past come
through the roots into the mind of the speaker. I still want to look at that idea
again, I just need to get the language right.

Survival, once entitled Human, is a poem that was first inspired by

something that I wrote in my journal; an entry about dragonflies. Then, I
heard a story on the radio that connected with the dragonflies. It was really
hard to do. I was trying to explore evolution and survival of the fittest, but
Im not sure if that is what came across. During workshop, a lot of people did
not get the connection between the dragonflies and the rest of the poem. So,
I tried to make it more clear, and added more stanzas, and may have went
too far. Sometimes less is more, I think it was better before, I plan on working
on it again.

What tools do you think you have learned to use best in drafting your poems
imagery and figurative language, specific language, sonic devices (for
example, alliteration, assonance, consonance), line breaks, form & structure,
and rhythm?
I think that the tools that I have employed the most are imagery and specific
language. I have also been working on line breaks, being more intentional
about them, more conscience of how they end, and punctuation.

Blowing of trumpet
pounding of hooves,
of my heart.
Sometimes, she let me pick the horse.

In the above excerpt, I like how it sounds when I read it out loud. The first
two lines are said without a pause, then a slight pause before of my heart,
and a long pause, a breath, before the last line of the stanza.
White-capped waves kissed shore,
leaving flashes in the sand.
We filled our little plastic pink buckets,
then gave the silver back to the sea.

In the above lines, I like the alliteration, assonance, and imagery.

Jockeys in shimmering silks, horses glisten, shimmy and snort, their heads
held high. What a spectacle. It all enticed. By the time anyone noticed the
cigarette butts, the losing tickets, the lost souls, it was too late. They had
already placed their bets.

In the above, from one of my prose poems, I am happy with the sensory
detail, and alliteration.

What tools do you think you still have difficulties with? In other words, using
them still seems stiff or rubs against the grain for you?
I still have issues with telling instead of showing. Its a challenge for me to be
creative with my language, and to find just the right words.

In what specific ways did you push yourself to stretch and grow as a student
in this class learning about the craft of writing poems? Be sure to discuss
attendance, class participation, your attention to the assigned readings and
what youre learning from them, responses to other students work as well as
the work on your own poems.

I was a little overwhelmed this semester, and Im disappointed that I wasnt

able to complete a couple of the assignments. I also feel bad about not doing
worksheets for all of the members of my group. It wasnt that I took it lightly
or didnt think it important, I just didnt have time to collect my thoughts and
give real feedback. I feel good about attendance, and class participation, and
about doing the assigned reading. I know that I could have done more on my
poems, and plan on working on them over the summer.
A Day at the Track
Mom and Ginny find seats, me and sis take off. We collected discarded
programs, sold them for a quarter to the suckers coming in. If it was
Hollywood Park, wed get candy and a smile from the black woman in the
bathroom. At Santa Anita, there was a tunnel with hideous looking gnomes
painted on the walls. Their gnome eyes followed us, their sinister gnome
smiles sneered at us. We laughed and screamed and ran toward the light,
until breathless, we would end up in a playground in the middle of the track.
Del Mar was the best, it was near the ocean. We used to sneak out the front
gate, climb over the railroad tracks, over the dunes, to the beach, without
mom ever knowing. I can still feel the warmth of the sand we would bury
ourselves in, taste the salt on my lips. I remember the way my heart beat
when we ran back over the dunes. Wed run over blacktop littered with losing
tickets, and cigarette butts, back to the stands, after the last race had been
called, hoping to find mom or Ginny with that look on their faces. Most of the
time though, they looked like everyone else, dejected. We would join the
throng of people leaving, shuffling along, resigned, with eyes that stared
ahead. They had all been tricked. By the flower beds, the fauna, the
Disneyland clean, the glistening horses with heads held high, jockeying for
attention, shaking their manes, their riders in shiny satin; a regal spectacle, a
glamourous faade. It all enticed. By the time anyone noticed the cigarette
butts, the losing tickets, the lost souls, it was too late. They had already
placed their bets.

A Day at the Track

Once we got to the track, mom and Ginny would find a seat in the stands,
and me and my sister would take off. We were on familiar ground, each track
our backyard, our kingdom. We collected discarded programs, sold them for
a quarter to the suckers coming in. If it was Hollywood Park, wed get candy
and a smile from the black woman in the bathroom. At Santa Anita, there
was a tunnel with hideous looking gnomes painted on the walls. Their gnome
eyes followed us, their sinister gnome smiles sneered at us. We laughed and
screamed and ran toward the light, until breathless, we would end up in a
playground in the middle of the track. Del Mar was the best, it was near the
ocean. We used to sneak out the front gate, climb over the railroad tracks,
over the dunes, to the beach, without mom ever knowing. I can still feel the
warmth of the sand we would bury ourselves in, taste the salt on my lips. I
remember the way my heart beat when we ran back over the dunes. Wed
run over blacktop littered with losing tickets, and cigarette butts, back to the
stands, after the last race had been called, hoping to find mom or Ginny with
that look on their face. Most of the time though, they looked like everyone
else, dejected. We would join the throng of people leaving, shuffling along,
resigned, with eyes that stared ahead. They had all been tricked. By the
flower beds, the fauna, the Disneyland clean, the glistening horses with
heads held high, jockeying for attention, shaking their manes, their riders in
shiny satin; a regal spectacle, a glamourous faade. It all enticed. By the
time anyone noticed the cigarette butts, the losing tickets, the lost souls, it
was too late. They had already placed their bets.
A Day at the Track
Mom and Ginny find a seat in the stands, me and sis make mental notes,
take off. We collected discarded programs, sold them for a quarter to the
suckers coming in. If it was Hollywood Park, wed get candy and a smile from
the black woman in the bathroom. At Santa Anita, there was a tunnel with
hideous looking gnomes painted on the walls. Their gnome eyes followed us,
their sinister gnome smiles sneered at us. We laughed and screamed and ran
toward the light, until breathless, we would end up in a playground in the
middle of the track. Del Mar was the best, it was near the ocean. We used to
sneak out the front gate, climb over the railroad tracks, over the dunes, to
the beach, without mom ever knowing. I can still feel the warmth of the sand
we would bury ourselves in, taste the salt on my lips. I remember the way
my heart beat when we ran back over the dunes. Wed run over blacktop
littered with losing tickets, and cigarette butts, back to the stands, after the
last race had been called, hoping to find mom or Ginny with that look on
their face. Most of the time though, they looked like everyone else, dejected.
We would join the throng of people leaving, shuffling along, resigned, with
eyes that stared ahead. They had all been tricked. By the flower beds, the
fauna, the Disneyland clean, the glistening horses with heads held high,
jockeying for attention, shaking their manes, their riders in shiny satin; a
regal spectacle, a glamourous faade. It all enticed. By the time anyone
noticed the cigarette butts, the losing tickets, the lost souls, it was too late.
They had already placed their bets.
What I Remember
I dont remember her tucking me in bed at night,
reading to me, tickling me, playing peek a boo,
dont remember her counting my fingers, toes
and telling me where my little piggies went.
I dont remember baking cookies,
or lunches packed with love notes.
Carol Brady, she was not.

But I remember her taking me and my sister to the track.

After a day of trumpets and horses, it was off to
Pic-A-Dilly for clam chowder.
One time, we stayed in a hotel on the beach
to catch grunion in the moonlight.
White-capped waves rolled into
shore, leaving silver flashes in the sand.
We filled up our little buckets, then let them all go.

I remember her determined walk,

when the girl down the street didnt
invite me and my sister to her party.
Her hands on her hips, she let
the girl know that she would not
be invited to any of our parties.
I wanted to die.
I remember, when I was seventeen,
sitting at the table, staring at nothing,
she told me I looked beautiful.
She knew what I needed.
I remember climbing into the hospital bed,
being between the metal side rail and
pressed up against her skin, holding her close,
feeling her shallow breathing, and
softly singing to her, a song that
I knew without learning, that seemed
a part of me from before I could remember,
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me
happy, when skies are grey
What I Remember
Blowing of trumpet,
pounding of hooves,
of my heart.
Sometimes, she let me pick the horse.

I remember a night on the beach.

Pic-a-Dilly clam chowder,
catching grunion by light of moon.
White-capped waves kissed shore,
leaving silver flashes in sand.
We filled up our little buckets,
then gave them back to the sea.

I remember her determined walk,

when the girl down the street didnt
invite me and my sister to her party.
Her hands on her hips, she let
the girl know that she would not
be invited to any of our parties.
I wanted to die.
I remember, when I was seventeen,
sitting at the table, staring at nothing,
she told me I looked beautiful.
She knew what I needed.
I remember climbing into the hospital bed,
being between the metal side rail and
pressed up against her skin, holding her close,
feeling her shallow breathing, and
softly singing to her, a song that
I knew without learning, that seemed
a part of me from before I could remember,
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me
happy, when skies are grey
What I Remember
Blowing of trumpet,
pounding of hooves,
of my heart.
Sometimes, she let me pick the horse.
I remember a night on the beach.
Pic-a-Dilly clam chowder,
catching grunion by moonlight.
White-capped waves kissed shore,
leaving silver flashes in the sand.
We filled up our little buckets,
then gave them back to the sea.
I remember her determined walk,
when the girl down the street didnt
invite me and my sister to her party.
Her hands on her hips, she let
the girl know that she would not
be invited to any of our parties.
I wanted to die.
I remember, when I was seventeen,
sitting at the table, staring at nothing,
she told me I looked beautiful.
She knew what I needed.
I remember climbing into the hospital bed,
being between the metal side rail and
pressed up against her skin, holding her close,
feeling her shallow breathing, and
softly singing to her, a song that
I knew without learning, that seemed
a part of me from before I could remember,
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me
happy, when skies are grey
Displacement
Think of that. Just as many people living rurally, but living with bears and
wolves and elk and pronghorn, and within vast stretches of riparian forests
and valley oak and blue oak savannas, all without fences.
I cant help but think,
that the wildness of
dark oak, the trees
that grew in this place,
this land of gold, before
the orchards were planted,
I cant help but think
that this wildness
has taken hold,
seeped up
from deep in the soil, up
into the trunks
of the walnut trees, which
appear at first glance to be so
regal, so proud of their preciseness,
of their placement in such orderly rows,
guarding their secrets
like sentinels; But look again,
consider their limbs,
see how they
bend, how they reach and stretch up,
out toward each other
toward the earth
toward the sky
as if, though rooted,
they will not be contained.
Beneath, the oaks bide their time.
The Wildness
I cant help but think,
that the wildness of
dark oak creeps up.
The wildness deep in the soil,
up into the trunks
of the walnut trees.

See how they

bend, how they reach and stretch
out toward each other
toward the earth
toward the sky
as if, though rooted,
they will not be contained.
A Dragonflys Eyes
Today I saw dragonflies
for the first time, those magnificent wings
of shiny chitin (kite-en) and veins. Miniscule creeks of blue and purple,
catching the light.
Flying backwards and forwards, up and down,
they have been hovering overhead for sixty-five million years.
They have survived. They have a jaw that can open the size of their head.
Male dragonflies rape the females, they grab them by the neck,
and bite them if they resist. They have little barbs
on their penises to scrape out the semen of
other raping males, and they guard the female until
her eggs are fertilized, and so it goes on.
Their sphere-like limpid eyes have thirty thousand
individual facets, giving him a three hundred-sixty-degree view of the world,
making them fierce hunters. A dragonfly will kill 95 percent of what its
targets.
I remember, last semester, walking between classes,
the air was warm and heavy, and I reveled in the breeze that
cooled every pore of my body, and
the ground below me, shadows of trees and
a swarm of dragonflies was above me, a wave
of vibrating air went through me,
and their shadows were on the ground
and I was stepping on them along with the
leaves and the trees and the pollen and the dust.
Driving home tonight, passing the fields of green and the
grazing cows and the pink florescent glow of the strip club,
fighting sleep, I listened to the radio; On a summer day
in 1966, on a university campus in Austin, Texas, a
sniper in a tower, with a three hundred-sixty-degree view, killed fourteen
people. One of the bullets hit an eighteen-year old girl,
her boyfriend was killed trying to shield her. The girl lived,
but the bullet she took shattered the life that was
growing in her womb. The doctors removed her uterus,
her ovaries, carved it all out, and left a crevice. Left
her hollow. She had spoken with the aunt of the sniper,
who told her that he had suffered as a child,
that he grew up seeing his mother getting her face punched in,
and she forgave him.
She was comforted
when she, years later, went back,
and laid on the ground where it happened.

Human
Intelligence is based on how efficient a species became at doing the things
they need to survive.

-Charles Darwin

Dragonflies are of the most ancient

of orders. Since the time of the dinosaur,
for sixty-five million years,
they have hovered
between earth and sky,
with iridescent wings,
each moving asynchronously,
backwards and forwards, up and down.
Fierce hunters, they are the only winged insect that
can track the flight path of their prey,
killing 95 percent of what they target,
they devour their catch with jaws that
open as big as their heads. Their bulbous eyes
on the sides of their heads,
have thirty thousand individual facets,
and give them a 360-degree view of the world.

On a summer day in 1966, a man climbed

twenty-eighth floors, to the observation deck
of a 307- foot tower in the center of the
University of Texas campus, giving
him a 360-degree view of the world.
A former sniper in the Marines,
he raised his rifle, took aim,
and took the lives of fourteen people,
including the life inside
of an eighteen-year old girl.
She survived.
In a recent interview, she said
she forgave him. She said
that, through the years,
she would go back, and
she would lay down, and rest
her head on the cement where it happened.
Literary Response
Camille Dungy spoke to our class, and put us at ease with her warm
personality. She was very authentic, and very forthcoming with great advice
about poetry, and about her process of writing. For instance, she talked
about repetition. She cautioned that strict adherence to repetition can end
up detracting from the poem. She believes that repetition only works with
substitution, and formulation. She used an iron lung as a metaphor for
variety, illustrating the way we breathe. She talked about people hooked up
to the Iron Lung getting pneumonia, and how doctors figured out that the
problem with the machine was that it was consistent, and real breathing
varies. We need variety. I always think about, as Im writing a longer poem,
what she said about the length of a poem, how she stressed that poems can
be short, and how for every poem that you see, there are two or three
poems.

Literary Response
Robert Pinsky, a former U.S. Poet Laureate, combined his poetry with the jazz
piano music of Laurence Hobgood. He calls the combination, PoemJazz.
Hobgood played his piano as Pinsky recited his poetry, but the way he
recited it was unique. He seemed to use his voice like an instrument. He
used pitch, and rhythm, so that his voice sounded like a horn. Although I
liked the performance, I do think that the music detracted from the poems
themselves. I found myself focusing on the inflection of Pinskys voice more
than the content of the poems.