SHOUT

  the lede, factual recitations

  my specialty, I inquired

  as required

  accidentally acquiring

  a calling to listen very carefully

  and try to write the truth

  cave painting

  I’d been scribbling ever since

  Mrs. Sheedy-Shea taught me haiku:

  stories, poems, fairy tales, mysteries,

  gothic nightmares

  and, occasionally, happy endings

  when I had babies I tried to write for them, too,

  I sucked

  but persisted, resisting the temptation to quit

  I wrote picture books

  that sucked so bad

  they were rejected over and over and over again

  but I persisted, enlisting new friends

  all of us thirsting to write and be read

  I pounded out novels and nonfiction,

  major suckage, constantly, appropriately rejected

  I freaking persisted, insisting I could figure

  it out

  The stories, the words, the phrases

  coming out of the mists persisted,

  even when I wanted

  to pack it in, give it up, and get out.

  My existence insisted

  on listening to the voices in my head distantly

  cheering my ambition

  I tried a new thing—revision—

  and persisted, dismissing my doubts, risking

  my pride

  demystifying a process

  that consisted of untwisting the trysting words

  in my brainpan and convincing them

  to behave

  inspiration and craft slowly melding

  into this, the consistent beat of my words

  against the drum

  if it please the court

  the courthouse reporter was out sick one day

  so they sent me in his place, the defendant

  a plain white guy, late thirties,

  kinda small, cheap suit,

  good haircut, charged with ugly counts

  of sexual assault, plus kidnapping

  he looked bored

  She went to a party with friends,

  hey, nineteen, a good time;

  loud music and wine coolers

  the night warm enough for the crowd

  to dance outside, yeah, he was older

  but older guys always showed up

  invited or not. After dancing under the stars,

  she had to go home, but the girl who drove

  there was wasted and she didn’t have enough cash

  for a cab

  so, looking bored, he offered

  to drive her home

  a gentleman,

  on the way he asked if they could stop

  at his parents’ house for a sec

  so he could let out the dog, a puppy

  she loved puppies

  so she followed him into his parents’ house

  and found that there was no puppy,

  no parents

  just a roll of duct tape

  and twenty-four hours of torture

  as the police recited the details

  the rapist yawned

  Defense lawyer did his job

  by attacking the victim

  shouting that she drank, she danced,

  she dressed to look good

  she wanted it, she followed him

  liked it rough

  or planned on marriage or extortion

  as she cried on the stand, long blonde hair

  in front of her face, a curtain for her sanity,

  he painted her into a corner with accusations

  fantastical but just barely legal

  screaming lawyers objected

  counter-objected, sustained, upheld

  blind justice torn apart by jackals

  the jury confused

  that young woman shook so hard

  I thought the roof would cave in

  ever been in a fight?

  fists like hammers, punches thrown

  rose-red bloom filling the room

  as your rage catches fire

  an exploding can of spray paint

  when you see that red

  shit’s gonna get real

  you’re gonna hurt someone

  or do something stupid

  probably both

  I saw that red, as the victim shook

  cuz she’d thought she was safe

  thought there was a puppy

  I saw myself crawling over the seats, leaping

  throwing punches, busting knuckles, breaking

  a chair over his head, the sweet sound of his teeth

  skittering across the floor

  my pencil snapped

  me, still in my chair, notebook soaked

  sweat dripping down my face

  judge banged the gavel

  BAM!

  ended the day early

  I stayed till the court emptied and I could breathe

  again,

  told the story to my editor, who did the right thing

  for journalism

  by assigning someone else to cover the trial

  defense lawyer negotiated a plea bargain,

  the rapist

  sentenced to some easy time in county jail,

  a mild slap on the wrist

  Years later, walking in the mall

  with my daughters tall and gangly

  I saw him again, that rapist

  only that time, he didn’t look bored

  because

  he was hunting

  how the story found me

  An old woman rocks in my subconscious

  sending songs, hidden messages, spor—

  //record scratch//

  I dream a lot in Danish

  when I wake up from a danskdrøm

  I confuse the two languages

  until the coffee kicks in,

  this morning as I worked on a draft of this poem,

  I centered

  it on the word spor

  I said the old woman who wanders

  in the woods of my mind

  who knits in the rocking chair of my subconscious

  she shows me the spors,

  the hints of what passed this way

  when I wasn’t paying attention,

  and what lies ahead in wait

  except the word in English is “footprints,”

  or “animal tracks”

  the dashes left in snow by a frightened rabbit

  punctures made by the chasing wolf

  maybe she is future me, that old dame

  maybe future me sends my dreams /

  mine drømme

  to now me, or past me, as warnings/advarsler

  or advice/råd, or maybe she’s just messing with me

  and cackling

  my nightmares repeat over and over

  until I pay attention, pay my respects

  to whatever is eating

  at me; one night, just as my oldest

  started middle school

  I heard a girl sobbing, brokenhearted

  I jolted awake and checked on my daughters

  convinced that I’d heard one of them, but no,

  the crying girl was lost in my head

  and she wouldn’t let me sleep

  because she couldn’t speak

  and she needed an interpreter

  so I started writing in the middle of that night

 
the stream of unconscious eventually merging

  with my waking self, a year of scribbling

  mostly before dawn

  turns out the mother word is spor in Old English,

  Germanic, Old Norse, and survives

  unchanged in Danish

  pops up in modern English as spoor

  borrowed from Afrikaans in 1823

  so I wasn’t as trapped between languages

  as I thought

  and the hour spent swimming

  in multilingual etymology

  was its own reward

  the first publisher I sent Speak to rejected it

  I never thought anyone would publish the story

  let alone read it

  I am often distracted, diverted

  from my path when I explore old wounds

  it’s a defensive reaction,

  a way to modulate my feelings

  and cope with the discomfort,

  like telling jokes at a funeral,

  not appropriate, but less damaging than gin

  too many grown-ups tell kids to follow

  their dreams

  like that’s going to get them somewhere

  Auntie Laurie says follow your nightmares instead

  cuz when you figure out what’s eating you alive

  you can slay it

  Speak, Draft One, Page One

  (from my journal)

  FIRST MARKING PERIOD

  I’m looking for the key

  to open the door

  to this story

  an overheard motel

  room conversation

  if they would just turn down the television

  I could hear the words clearly,

  maybe find the magic

  formula.

  No outline. Not this time,

  just a character on a page,

  the stage

  spotlighted

  and alone

  with her fear,

  heart open,

  unsheltered.

  Melinda, age 14.

  Trapped in a year with no calendar

  pages, just day after day

  of 14,

  cuz the hands of the clock

  in biology class are frozen

  at five till three.

  two

  Polyhymnia

  It is my first morning of high school.

  I

  have seven new notebooks,

  a skirt I hate,

  and a stomachache.

  (opening lines of Speak)

  I began high school (my fourth school in four

  years)

  with six polyester skirts, not just one,

  all sewn by my grandmother,

  who loved me so much

  she didn’t want me to start

  the new school in hand-me-downs,

  cuz the rich kids would laugh

  she sewed me six skirts

  the colors of autumn

  so I could wear a brown turtleneck

  with all of them. I armored

  myself that first day

  (two weeks after the boy raped me)

  with incantations grandmaternal;

  love-sewn skirt, unheard prayers,

  a penny in each loafer, I walked to the bus stop

  then to the gallows

  my first day of ninth grade had no assembly

  no “First Ten Lies They Tell You in High School”

  no showdown with Mr. Neck

  Speak is a novel

  rooted in facts, to be sure,

  but a story bred with its own DNA

  an invasive species growing out of a stump

  of a tree hit by lightning

  growing from the girl who survived

  the overlap of my stories and my life

  is a garden courtyard, sky-strung with stars

  and scars where planets were torn

  from their orbits

  the courtyard where that stump grows

  is surrounded by stone walls

  three miles high, carved

  with thousands of locked doors

  and secrets that bloom open

  in the moonlight

  conspiracy

  They said if Speak sold a couple thousand copies

  we’d be lucky, cuz teenagers didn’t like to read

  I had no expectations or hopes

  I never thought it would be published at all

  one day a man called me to tell me

  I was a finalist

  for the National Book Award

  confused, I called my editor

  who explained that I needed to buy a dress

  a fancy one, cuz this was a seriously big deal

  country mouse in New York City

  I scurried to events, anxious, unsure

  tried to blend into the wallpaper

  my fellow finalists more comfortable

  with the shiny new world that required dresses

  or suits, riding in cabs instead of on the subway

  student journalists gathered to interview

  us, the Fab Five Finalists, onstage:

  Walter Dean Myers, Monster

  Louise Erdrich, The Birchbark House

  Kimberly Willis Holt, When Zachary Beaver

  Came to Town

  Polly Horvath, The Trolls

  and me,

  the spotlights in our eyes made it hard to see

  our interrogators, but the questions were

  thoughtful.

  When it was over the kids filed out,

  and we headed for the door

  toward lunch at a posh restaurant

  on someone else’s dime

  but Walter

  Walter was deep in conversation

  with one of the students,

  talking books and Harlem

  and other important things

  I waited by the door for him

  Walter was the first established author I’d met

  he welcomed me into the world of books for kids

  with joy, wisdom, and grace, he taught

  me everything I know about my responsibility

  to my readers, starting that day

  cuz he didn’t go to lunch at all, he waved us off

  that young man was filled with questions

  and Walter had some answers

  and questions of his own

  he made the time for a reader

  because integrity required it

  that’s what we’re called to do

  the award dinner was mad stressful, the chairman

  of my publisher’s company sat at my table

  he’d flown in from Germany for the event

  and didn’t look happy about it

  that made two of us; my dress itched,

  my shoes pinched

  nervous-thirsty, I drank gallons of water

  constantly racing to the bathroom to pee

  Walter sat at the table next to mine

  throughout the evening, he’d turn

  and tell me a joke

  point out how glamorous events

  like this had nothing to do with the sweat

  of writing,

  but the desserts were good

  when the time came, we enjoyed

  Oprah Winfrey’s speech

  Steve Martin pronounced my name right,

  that was impressive,

  then the chair of the Young People’s Literature jury

  approached the podium

  she talked about how much kid
s love to read,

  how they found books through family,

  friends, librarians,

  the people who would read aloud to them. . . .

  Walter looked at me and arched an eyebrow

  he and I wrote for the kids

  who didn’t have those people

  children with scars

  inside and out, kids whose childhoods

  disappeared in the rearview mirror

  a long time ago

  he leaned forward and whispered, “We’re screwed”

  which made me laugh, we clapped

  and cheered for Kimberly

  because she wrote a great book, too,

  then Walter poured me a glass of wine

  first one of the evening but not the last

  we toasted each other

  we celebrated writing for the kids

  the world doesn’t want to see

  earlier, when the student journalists

  interviewed us

  one commented about the friendly vibe

  of the Fab Five Finalists, asked

  “Aren’t you supposed to be competitors?”

  Walter took the mic and smiled

  “No,” he said. “Not competitors.

  We’re coconspirators, and we like it that way.”

  That was when I knew I was home.

  tsunami

  tens of thousands speak

  words ruffling the surface of the sea

  into whitecaps, they whisper

  into the shoulder of my sweater

  they mail

  tweet, cry

  direct-message

  hand me notes

  folded into shards

  when no one is watching

  sharing memories and befuddlement

  broken dreams and sorrow

  they struggle in the middle

  of the ocean, storms battering

  grabbing for sliced life jackets

  driftwood

  flotsam and jetsam from downed

  unfound planes, sunken ships

  and other disasters

  if they can keep their heads up

  they swim for the nearby

  Melindas

  to help them save

  themselves from drowning

  in that hungry sea of despair

  as they lift up their sisters

  and brothers

  and those who claim their space

  beyond old definitions

  they tell their stories

  and speak their truth

  earthquakes in deep water

  send ripples to the surface

  that crave the shore