J.L. Knox

The reasons I love Jennifer L. Knox are too many to list. But her ability of writing dark humored narratives within her poetry is something I admire and support in big way (you either identify or you don't - very little straddling the lines on this one). Her work isn't like what we were reading in AP English during high school - but maybe if we had I wouldn't have spent years saying I hated poetry (which ws probably due to a lack of understanding).

If My Love For You Were an Animal
Jennifer L. Knox

It would have three legs left, but only need two.
It would be easy to catch, but hard to kill.
It could hold its breath all winter and sleep upside down, anchored under the ice in kelp.
When wet, it would smell like clarinet reeds.
It would break every thing in the house—but purposely, silently, secretly, one item at
a time, over hundreds of years, so no one would notice.
Its cry, like an electrical tower wrestling a giant tinfoil dolphin in a meteor crater;

its purr, low enough to drive snakes from their dens.
It would be flightless, but you could always find it hiding up high.
Its name would mean magnet.

Ants would march towards it over mountains, and across the sea floor.
You could elbow it as hard as you wanted to right in the ribs.
It would be so loyal, if you fell asleep before you took the sleeping pill,

it would slip the sleeping pill under your tongue.

Check out her books Gringo Like Me and Drunk Before Noon if you really want to appreciate her.

-another reason I love her is that she looks like she is going to bake you cookies after school, but writes like that. Who knows, maybe she writes while the cookies are baking