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Poetry Prize Finalist

Kay Tipsord: “The Affects of History”

By Kay Tipsord on November 28, 2018 in Poetry

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Kay Tipsord’s  poem “The Affects of History” begins with the great concern of all art: “the problem of memory.” And like someone fashioning a breakable world, the poet delivers detail with a careful hand,  effectively directing the eye distracted by the immensity of the universe to something so small, it is the only thing that matters.

— Rocío Carlos, author of Attendance, poetry prize judge

*

The Affects of History

The problem of memory
Is the problem of a particular design
In a carpet, or the distance
The ground is from a window when it rains.

The problem of time
Is not its depletions but its accretions.
We arrive in new quarters bearing
Entire houses we lived in the summer we were twenty;

Ride random memories like funhouse cars
Doors flying open at our approach
Generally revealing something unpleasant.
Pain stays plainer than pleasure,

Becomes unbearable
When the air carries the scent of a cologne
You wore to the senior prom
Down the street of a strange city.

Someone is playing guitar chords;
Across the tile roofs the sound
Surrounds you with another town
Like fog.

The problem of living
Past twenty or forty is the distance
One town is from another,
The distance the rain has to fall.

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TagsfinalistJack Grapes Poetry Prizekay tipsordpoempoetry

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About the author

Kay Tipsord

Kay Tipsord

I began writing poetry at age 9 with a friend; we wrote a book and copied it several times and handed it out to parents and friends. Reviews were excellent. I taught college-level English classes for a few years and sent out poems regularly and got rejection letters regularly. I had a very few poems published in tiny journals who paid in copies. After leaving the academic life I wrote less and submitted even less. Every so often I would enter a contest; usually I got honorable mention. I am retired now and spend time revising and writing without any expectations of publishing; I share sometimes with friends. I also knit, and find myself more moved by color than by words as I age but moved by both, really.

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  • maurice amiel maurice amiel
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