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Poem-a-Day Collection by Knopf. Compilation copyright 2009 by Knopf.
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Robert Lowell's Poetry Class By Stephanie Hemphill Sylvia stretches her skin
to fit someone else's bones—
her poems not yet her own. George Starbuck, Syl, and I,
trinity of the master poet's class,
drink martinis, chow potato chips at the Ritz, until slightly blitzed.
Drinks making us more real,
we talk suicide until laughter tears from our eyes.
Then we bunch into my car
for the Waldorf Cafeteria's seventy-cent dinner,
none of us having a better
or demanding home life to return to. I implore Sylvia to push herself,
pluck the drum of her heart
until it bleeds. Sometimes I think Lowell praises Sylvia too much,
or maybe he just sees something
in her language that I cannot. -- Buy Stephanie Hemphill Your Own Sylvia from Amazon here. Buy Stephanie Hemphill Your Own Sylvia from IndieBound here. Visit poem-a-day.knopfdoubleday.com for more about this poem and to sign up for Knopf's 2010 Poem-a-Day email. Excerpt from YOUR OWN SYLVIA. Copyright © 2007 by Knopf. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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