E. Kristin Anderson
/2008
AMELIA AT GARDNER ISLAND
“as I open my arms to pray. Dear Jesus, / Dear God: you meant me to fly.”
BY E. KRISTIN ANDERSON - FROM ROANOKE REVIEW, 2008
current work
LULLABY
Life gave me lemons,
an even sparkle all over.
My secret trick?
Don't let the sun set.
An even sparkle all over,
no one can see it in the dark.
Don't let the sun set,
make a pretty impact.
No one can see it
in the dark.
In the night,
make a pretty impact.
I die.
In the night,
my secret trick?
I die.
Life gave me lemons.
This is a found poem. Source materials: Articles from Seventeen, August 2014. “Fashion Nails! by Jillian Ruffio, page 84; “Feeling Sombré?” by Amanda Elser, page 86; “Five Star Beauty,” page 88; “Easy Fall Updates! For You!” pages 91-94.
a note from the author
It seems I wrote "Amelia at Gardner Island"several versions of myself ago, and it's one of a few poems from my early days that I still feel close to. I wrote it after reading an article in Bust Magazine about Amelia Earhart and the theory that she ended up marooned on Gardner Island. I guess in a way it was my first response poem. I write in conversation with pop culture and current events a lot now, but in 2008 I was still very much finding my feet as a poet. Over the last ten or so years I've surprised myself by embracing both constraint and experimental methods and I know my voice keeps evolving but the work I'm creating now is both more focused and more exciting. I always have a few projects going and while it makes me an incredibly busy poet I love how this expands possibilities. If anything, in the time since I wrote "Amelia at Gardner Island" I've learned that there are more places to start poems than I ever imagined and most of them are worth checking out.
E. Kristin Anderson is a poet and glitter enthusiast living mostly at a Starbucks somewhere in Austin, Texas. A Connecticut College alumna with a B.A. in classical studies, Kristin’s work has appeared in many magazines including The Texas Review, The Pinch, Barrelhouse Online, TriQuarterly, and FreezeRay Poetry. She is the editor of Come as You Are, an anthology of writing on 90s pop culture (Anomalous Press) and is the author of nine chapbooks of poetry including Pray Pray Pray: Poems I wrote to Prince in the middle of the night (Porkbelly Press), Fire in the Sky (Grey Book Press), 17 seventeen XVII (Grey Book Press), and Behind, All You’ve Got (Semiperfect Press). Kristin is a poetry reader at Cotton Xenomorph and an editorial assistant at Sugared Water. Once upon a time she worked the night shift at The New Yorker. Find her online at EKristinAnderson.com and on twitter at @ek_anderson.
