<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto">Lovely, lovely poem, Allison!<div><div><div dir="ltr"><br><blockquote type="cite">On Mar 20, 2023, at 6:08 PM, Allison Hedge Coke <allisonh@ucr.edu> wrote:<br><br></blockquote></div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div> "Description of Symptoms" by Allison Benis White <b class="gmail_sendername" dir="auto">Poem-a-Day | Poets.org</b> </div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><br><div class="msg-3204382361727121527"><u></u>
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<span class="m_-3204382361727121527mcnPreviewText" style="display:none;font-size:0px;line-height:0px;max-height:0px;max-width:0px;opacity:0;overflow:hidden">Now my hands buried / in my hair, resting on piano keys</span>
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<div style="text-align:right">March 20,<span style="color:#000000;font-size:12px"> 2023 </span></div>
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<h1 style="display:block;margin:0;padding:0;color:#6b6a6a;font-family:Georgia,Times,'Times New Roman',serif;font-size:40px;font-style:italic;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:left"><span style="font-size:26px"><b></b></span></h1><h1 style="display:block;margin:0;padding:0;color:#6b6a6a;font-family:Georgia,Times,'Times New Roman',serif;font-size:40px;font-style:italic;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:left"><a href="https://poets.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e329a0cb6f08842f08a05d822&id=efcbb59356&e=9de57db1a5" style="color:#00add8;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:none" target="_blank">Description of Symptoms</a></h1>
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<a href="https://poets.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e329a0cb6f08842f08a05d822&id=271186dff0&e=9de57db1a5" style="color:#00add8;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:none" target="_blank"><b>Allison Benis White</b></a>
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<td class="m_-3204382361727121527mcnTextContent" style="padding:0px 18px 9px;font-size:16px;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal;line-height:150%;word-break:break-word;color:#484848;font-family:Georgia,Times,'Times New Roman',serif;text-align:left" valign="top">
<p style="font-size:16px;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal;line-height:150%;margin:10px 0;padding:0;color:#484848;font-family:Georgia,Times,'Times New Roman',serif;text-align:left"><span>Now my hands buried </span><br>
<span>in my hair, resting on piano keys </span><br>
<span>in the back of my head. </span><br>
<span>This is the music I am playing </span><br>
<span>through my mind: a dark room singing </span><br>
<span>a song that will not have children. </span></p>
<p style="font-size:16px;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal;line-height:150%;margin:10px 0;padding:0;color:#484848;font-family:Georgia,Times,'Times New Roman',serif;text-align:left"><span>* </span></p>
<p style="font-size:16px;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal;line-height:150%;margin:10px 0;padding:0;color:#484848;font-family:Georgia,Times,'Times New Roman',serif;text-align:left"><span>Lying on the floor tonight, snowflakes </span><br>
<span>cut from paper laid over my eyes, a hand </span><br>
<span>carved from wood laid over my mouth. </span><br>
<span>If the truth is the thing you must not say, </span><br>
<span>I will speak for the vase now</span><br>
as it falls: <span>it is better never </span><br>
<span>to be at all.<i> </i> </span><br>
<span><i> </i> </span><br>
<span>* </span></p>
<p style="font-size:16px;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal;line-height:150%;margin:10px 0;padding:0;color:#484848;font-family:Georgia,Times,'Times New Roman',serif;text-align:left"><span>A hand on the back of my head </span><br>
<span>made of glass, my love, my eyes, </span><br>
<span>filled with wire, life. Once </span><br>
<span>I watched a bird’s shadow cross a field </span><br>
<span>in the wind: a black hat that could not stop </span><br>
<span>tumbling. My eyes are sore </span><br>
<span>from seeing, my lips from speaking. </span></p>
<p style="font-size:16px;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal;line-height:150%;margin:10px 0;padding:0;color:#484848;font-family:Georgia,Times,'Times New Roman',serif;text-align:left"><span>* </span></p>
<p style="font-size:16px;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal;line-height:150%;margin:10px 0;padding:0;color:#484848;font-family:Georgia,Times,'Times New Roman',serif;text-align:left"><span>How a ribbon curls when pulled </span><br>
<span>across a scissor’s blade, I am practicing </span><br>
<span>transformation, pain. How the dark hair </span><br>
<span>of imagination, uncut, grows down </span><br>
<span>to the floor. What is left </span><br>
<span>but to make a world, a war? </span><br>
<span> </span><br>
<span>* </span></p>
<p style="font-size:16px;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal;line-height:150%;margin:10px 0;padding:0;color:#484848;font-family:Georgia,Times,'Times New Roman',serif;text-align:left"><span>Or a landscape in which to stay alive </span><br>
<span><i>(ghost flower/house of breath</i>). Another wish: language </span><br>
<span>drilled through ice, through my life. </span><br>
<span>If grief is love with nowhere to go, this is </span><br>
<span>my mouth turning into snow. </span><br>
<span>This is somewhere. </span></p>
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<p style="color:#717171;font-size:12px;margin:10px 0;padding:0;font-family:Georgia,Times,'Times New Roman',serif;line-height:150%;text-align:left">Copyright © 2023 by Allison Benis White. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on March 20, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.</p>
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<img src="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/e329a0cb6f08842f08a05d822/images/917d7e33-da43-4ea5-af1f-3e6b8361179b.png" style="border:0px initial;width:241px;height:29px;margin:0px;outline:none;text-decoration:none" width="241" height="29" data-unique-identifier="">
<p style="font-size:18px;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal;margin:10px 0;padding:0;color:#484848;font-family:Georgia,Times,'Times New Roman',serif;line-height:150%;text-align:left">“This poem was written after filling out medical intake forms for a doctor’s appointment last year. I was grieving for a friend who had ended her life, and I was experiencing symptoms I could not quite articulate. The poem surprised me with its ending, reminding me that language is a place for love to go.”<br>
<i>—Allison Benis White</i></p>
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<a href="https://poets.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e329a0cb6f08842f08a05d822&id=4114bcdf09&e=9de57db1a5" title="" target="_blank">
<img alt="Allison Benis White" src="https://mcusercontent.com/e329a0cb6f08842f08a05d822/images/61a0478f-4a72-f1e1-7a38-d03f677cb6b8.png" style="max-width:286px;border:0;height:auto;outline:none;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:bottom" class="m_-3204382361727121527mcnImage" width="176" data-unique-identifier="">
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<p style="margin:10px 0;padding:0;color:#484848;font-family:Georgia,Times,'Times New Roman',serif;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left"><a href="https://poets.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e329a0cb6f08842f08a05d822&id=02bb344e79&e=9de57db1a5" style="color:#00add8;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:none" target="_blank">Allison Benis White</a> is the author of <i>The Wendys </i>(Four Way Books, 2020) and <i>Please Bury Me in This</i> (Four Way Books, 2017), winner of the Rilke Prize. The recipient of the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, she is an associate professor at the University of California, Riverside.<br>
<br>
<a href="https://poets.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e329a0cb6f08842f08a05d822&id=531b8dde42&e=9de57db1a5" style="color:#00add8;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:none" target="_blank"><img src="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/e329a0cb6f08842f08a05d822/images/bc58361a-e9b8-4dba-82a6-dc8a03ba1283.png" style="border:0px;width:151px;height:20px;margin:0px;outline:none;text-decoration:none" width="151" height="20" data-unique-identifier=""></a></p>
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<img alt="The Wendys" src="https://mcusercontent.com/e329a0cb6f08842f08a05d822/images/a8d3d2d8-6af2-a8b8-e448-ee9dc8f84720.png" style="max-width:286px;border:0;height:auto;outline:none;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:bottom" class="m_-3204382361727121527mcnImage" width="176" data-unique-identifier="">
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<p style="margin:10px 0;padding:0;color:#484848;font-family:Georgia,Times,'Times New Roman',serif;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left"><a href="https://poets.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e329a0cb6f08842f08a05d822&id=4ae0f638ed&e=9de57db1a5" style="color:#00add8;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:none" target="_blank"><i>The Wendys</i></a><br>
(Four Way Books, 2020)<br>
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<a href="https://poets.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e329a0cb6f08842f08a05d822&id=fd2d5e9ec8&e=9de57db1a5" style="color:#00add8;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:none" target="_blank"><img src="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/e329a0cb6f08842f08a05d822/images/4a9f5f78-5969-4791-83e8-85b58a1a37a4.png" style="border:0;height:auto!important;outline:none;text-decoration:none" width="151" height="21" data-unique-identifier=""></a>
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<b>“A Horse Grazes in My Shadow” by Mat Rasmussen</b><br>
<a href="https://poets.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e329a0cb6f08842f08a05d822&id=aa5627c3fb&e=9de57db1a5" style="color:#00add8;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:none" target="_blank"><b>read more</b></a></div>
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<div style="text-align:center"><b>“The Eye Like a Strange Balloon Mounts Toward Infinity” by Mary Jo Bang</b><br>
<a href="https://poets.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e329a0cb6f08842f08a05d822&id=cf023ca29d&e=9de57db1a5" style="color:#00add8;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:none" target="_blank"><b>read more</b></a></div>
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<a href="https://poets.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e329a0cb6f08842f08a05d822&id=d0678fd923&e=9de57db1a5" style="color:#00add8;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:none" target="_blank"><img src="https://mcusercontent.com/e329a0cb6f08842f08a05d822/images/9f3f03b2-7ab4-4f3d-8703-f1f0ba4a7333.png" style="border:0px;width:350px;height:28px;margin:0px 0px 7px;outline:none;text-decoration:none" width="350" height="28" data-unique-identifier=""></a><br>
Thanks to <a href="https://poets.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e329a0cb6f08842f08a05d822&id=dd5bb8e634&e=9de57db1a5" style="color:#00add8;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:none" target="_blank">Diane Seuss</a>, author of <i><a href="https://poets.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e329a0cb6f08842f08a05d822&id=fca230d7fc&e=9de57db1a5" style="color:#00add8;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:none" target="_blank">frank: sonnets</a> </i>(Graywolf Press, 2021), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month’s weekdays. <a href="https://poets.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e329a0cb6f08842f08a05d822&id=5b8df9101f&e=9de57db1a5" style="color:#00add8;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:none" target="_blank">Read or listen to a Q&A</a> about Seuss’s curatorial approach and find out more about our <a href="https://poets.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e329a0cb6f08842f08a05d822&id=15e8a4ed54&e=9de57db1a5" style="color:#00add8;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:none" target="_blank">guest editors for the year</a>.
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