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    The Smell of Good Mud
    The Smell of Good Mud
    The Smell of Good Mud
    Ebook101 pages56 minutes

    The Smell of Good Mud

    By Lauren Zuniga

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    About this ebook

    Nationally acclaimed for her poem, To The Oklahoma Lawmakers, which MoveOn.org called �The most riveting message about the war on women in under three minutes,†Zuniga�s newest collection of poetry, The Smell of Good Mud, explores the wild terrain of queer, feminist, collective living in the conservative state of Oklahoma. Set in a house named Clementine, these poems offer a communal meal, a radiant love affair and the inner carnival of a single mother.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWrite Bloody Publishing
    Release dateNov 5, 2018
    ISBN9781935904984
    The Smell of Good Mud
    Author

    Lauren Zuniga

    Lauren Zuniga is a nationally touring poet and teaching artist. She is the founder of Oklahoma Young Writers. In 2010, she was nominated for Oklahoma Poet Laureate. She serves on the board of the IAO Gallery, tours for the Oklahoma Arts Council. She has competed in 9 national level poetry competitions.

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    Reviews for The Smell of Good Mud

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    • 5/5
      beautiful collection that made my heart ache understanding the world being described and lived in as a queer parent
    • 1/5
      The beginning of this book was really strong, but it started to go downhill for me around halfway through. Gibson has a talent for eye-catching phrases, but her poems lacked a coherent meaning for me. Perhaps I'm not as able to appreciate poetry as others.

    Book preview

    The Smell of Good Mud - Lauren Zuniga

    GRATITUDE

    OPENING

    The photographer says she can’t wait until my next opening.

    I start to correct her and say, with poetry,

    it’s called a reading, or a performance,

    sometimes a slam.

    Then I realize maybe that’s the problem.

    I step on my loud and say,

    Yes. Please come to my next opening!

    It will not be all good light and gallery smiles

    but I will fresh slice the walls for you,

    hang my absurd and wait for the wine to spill.

    It’s been a long time since I’ve shown anything.

    Notice the ten-foot installation of Talks Too Much.

    I eat margarine when I’m nervous. I get nervous

    when you like me. I describe things poetically

    to keep from saying what I really think.

    This one here is my father. Notice his head

    asleep on the stove. His hands, bloated livers.

    I drink when I can’t decide who to be.

    I starve when I decide I’m too much. I am angry,

    almost never.

    Which means you best prepare yourself

    for the nasty awkward that will rain down upon you,

    when I decide some things deserve my fucking angry.

    I fall in love like some women fall in mortgage.

    I have damn near become my mother

    minus five husbands and a bad case of arthritis.

    I am still cracking knuckles and divorcing.

    Here’s a ticket to The Moment I Surrender.

    A portrait called I Don’t Know Anything.

    I am terrified that my children think I love poetry

    more than I love them. I am never alone. Never ever alone.

    I go to crowded places where we sit, with a small plate

    of cheese and fruit, cock our head to one side and say,

    I can’t believe someone pinned my stomach to a canvas.

    That is why we do this.

    This is an invitation to stop swallowing the art in your mouth.

    This is an invitation to stop ripping yourself apart.

    This is an invitation to be a live nude. Let them draw you

    dirty, flawed and glistening.

    This is an invitation to

    your opening.

    CLEMENTINE, THE HOUSE.

    "Together we work to expel the bore-ocratic chairman of the bored.

    We strive to make the world Weirder."

    —Mary Daly

    TUESDAY EVENING

    Talia pots the citronella to keep

    the mosquitoes away. Hangs the mirror.

    Waters the rosemary. The tape player

    offers muffled trumpet, backyard clarinet.

    Keeps time with the curtains slapping

    their knees against the window.

    The kids are lined up at the corner

    waiting for the ice cream man.

    Pink headband gang. Drumsticks

    in back pockets. Silver coins drop

    from hips. They know their loot

    will go into the freezer until after dinner

    but the little ones giggle, nervous,

    as the big ones count their change.

    Penny slices onions and the freshest

    block of tofu. Megan scoops

    spaghetti squash in yellow mounds

    of ribbon. Chickweed and dandelion

    salad. Sprinkle of sunflower seeds.

    Wild rice and morel mushrooms.

    The girls built the raised bed while

    I was at work. Cedar planks, a truck

    full of black dirt. I staple chicken wire

    to the wood frame for the compost bin.

    The staples punch like snare.

    The breeze sings like a plastic harmonica.

    I fall in love a thousand times before

    I ever get called into dinner.

    GAS STATION VODKA

    Maybe it was the gas station vodka and Tahitian Treat.

    The bottle rockets exploding in the subway parking lot.

    Maybe it was the man in white pants punk-singing

    in the basement. The astronaut on the amp,

    the green umbrella, the ukulele.

    Maybe it was the tough and lovelies haunting

    the turn table. The red shag carpet, the rooster lamp.

    When I looked at you in that vinyl evening,

    I decided then and there that we really should

    get that cottage.

    Our cottage should not be in the woods, though.

    It should be in the city. With a yard full of goats

    that sing us worship songs.

    We should have a puppet theater with a tiny

    green dressing room for our puppets.

    We need a huge comfy couch where our feet

    don’t touch the ground. It will make us feel small

    when we get too big for our britches. And we will.

    Get too big for our britches. We will get terribly

    lonesome in our fame. We will get so deep

    in our awesomeness that we won’t even

    be

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