Nancy K. Pearson: “Thought Thinking Itself”


Nancy K. Pearson’s first collection of poetry, Two Minutes of Light, is the latest winner of the Perugia Press Intro Award. She has kindly permitted me to reprint a poem from her book below. Read more of her work and buy the book here.

Thought Thinking Itself

Suddenly, all the things I do not understand
discreetly twinkle below a surface.

A gristle of duckweed gleams through a thick chop of ice.
The green wafer of a fish drifts up through a pudding of eelgrass.

For 10 years, I lived mostly on psych wards & nothing burnished 
    more
than my overestimated connection to grief.

One year, my roommate consumed small amounts of arsenic 
    for a week.
Everyday, she stirred it through her warm brown soup.

Three blood transfusions later, she lit two portable charcoal grills
in the back seat of her Subaru & died.

We reassemble our lives & discover nothing.
Just under the skin, a tiny wick of green ignites a garlic clove.

In the early 1990’s, something went terribly wrong.
All around me, young women were diagnosed & diagnosed.

After a month on a psych ward, doctors discovered I had fifteen 
    personalities.
I was twenty. I made them all up. This is a true story.

If I could live my twenties again, I would not sever to untangle—
flight is a single ligament balanced between two forces.

In the snow, the geese link chains & I follow their past.
There is nothing at the end to unravel.

13 comments on “Nancy K. Pearson: “Thought Thinking Itself”

  1. glen says:

    hi Nancy.. i really – really liked this poem. it has so much identity within it. i was wondering if you would let me feature it on 10K Poets myspace page. it’s here: http://www.myspace.com/10kpoets. let me know.

    glen

  2. Bob says:

    Jendi, you mention that you obtained permission from Nancy to print this, I’m trying to find her- I have her listed as a missing friend. I’ve known her since 2nd grade. I would like to get an address or email or anything to try to contact her. Got anything like that?

  3. Rick Rofihe says:

    Great! & Check out also “Prairies” @ http://www.anderbo.com/anderbo1/anderprize2009.html — Nancy K. Pearson won this prize for that poem.

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