Jennifer Franklin is a poet, professor, and editor whose lastest book is If Some God Shakes Your House (Four Way Books, 2023). Her work has been commissioned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and her awards include a Pushcart Prize, a NYFA/City Artist Corp grant, and residencies from the T.S. Eliot Foundation and Café Royal Cultural Foundation. Her publications include The Paris Review, The Nation, poets.org, and “Poetry in Motion” from Poetry Society of America. She leads manuscript revision workshops and teaches in Manhattanville’s MFA Program.
I’m ceded – I’ve stopped being Theirs –
The name They dropped upon my face
With water, in the country church
Is finished using, now,
And They can put it with my Dolls,
My childhood, and the string of spools,
I’ve finished threading – too –
Baptized, before, without the choice,
But this time, consciously, Of Grace –
Unto supremest name –
Called to my Full – The Crescent dropped –
Existence’s whole Arc, filled up,
With one – small Diadem.
My second Rank – too small the first –
Crowned – Crowing – on my Father’s breast –
A half unconscious Queen –
But this time – Adequate – Erect,
With Will to choose, or to reject,
And I choose, just a Crown –
As Antigone
Jennifer FranklinI’m all done being nice.
It hasn’t gotten me anywhere.
Since I was young, I gave
everything away—milk
money, homework, adoration.
Everyone wanted to make me
into a small version of herself—
teaching me weaving, writing,
wiles. All I wanted was love—
picked a bouquet of dandelions
and handed it to my mother.
When she turned her mouth
into a little o and called the tight
yellow suns weeds, my body
became a weight I wanted
to let go. I thought of all
the lessons I memorized
to keep me still, the colors
I couldn’t wear because
they clashed with my red hair,
all the rules of modesty
so men would not look at me
with hunger. The only thing
I owned was a jar I was given,
like Pandora, as a girl. Before I
unlatched the lid, I had already lost
everything—faith, health,
my child. I refused to watch
what flew out. But something
hard as lapis, real as want,
wrenched my wrist right back
so hope remained, writhing
alone at the bottom of the jar
like dirty water after dead
tulips are discarded—
yellow stamens dropping
pollen to the floor. Silent,
it watched me for years.
Months at a time, I forgot
it was there. But when it’s
trapped like that, it grows
so large, nothing can quell it.
No one thanks me for what
I have done. But I don’t need
praise anymore. I turned
weeds into flowers.
Concepts mentioned:
Other Dickinson poems mentioned:
“The Soul selects her own Society –”
“After great pain, a formal feeling comes –”
“’Hope’ is the thing with feathers”
Characters mentioned:
People mentioned in the interview:
Alice Quinn (Columbia U)
Richard Howard (Columbia U)
Arnold Weinstein (Brown U)
Rita Dove and her book, Mother Love
Laurie Sheck – The Book of Persephone
Books mentioned:
Recorded October 2025.
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