Ask the Poet and the Small Observances, Big Ideas (SOBI) workshop cordially invite you to a Reading and Q&A over Zoom with California poet, Nancy Miller Gomez.
Snapshot
Nancy Miller Gomez
I was a hand grenade of a girl
vacuum packed into a dress
that bound my body
like a bandage staunching a wound.
My arms were cinched in tourniquets
of tulle, my throat choked in a rage
of lace. I’d hacked my hair into chaos.
Kept it ragged and short. Kept my fists
clenched in the fuselage of my lap. My eyes—
two foxholes. No light escaped. My lips
stretched across my face like a trip wire.
The man with the camera said, you can do better.
Give me a smile. I set my mouth
into the look I’ve kept all these years.
That’s still me in the photo,
waiting to pull the pin.
The guest poet series is a new feature of SOBI, generative, craft-focused workshops that explore living poets from the margins for woman- and non-binary-identifying writers. Some of you will have enjoyed our first guest poet feature back in February with Michael Kleber-Diggs. We engaged in an amazing chat about Jane Kenyon, hard truths, imagining audience, and more, and at the end of the hour, Michael left us with a prompt to work on. This time around I’m delighted to welcome poet Nancy Miller Gomez who will join us on Thursday, May 16th, 9am Pacific / 12noon Eastern / 5pm Ireland/UK.
Nancy will read some work from her forthcoming collection Inconsolable Objects, mixed with conversation and questions from me and from those in attendance. I encourage you to send me your questions for Nancy ahead of time, but you will also have the opportunity to ask questions in the moment. (In other words, Ask the Poet now or later.)
There are a limited number of spots for folks outside of the current workshop and paid subscriber circles to take part. Become a paid subscriber today! If you cannot subscribe, still feel free to get in touch. I ask those who are in a position to do so, to consider making a small donation to the SOBI scholarship fund, however, regardless of ability to pay, as long as there is space, you won’t be turned away.
Click here to pre-order Nancy’s Inconsolable Objects at a discount (release date May 21st). Hope you’ll join our conversation—it’s a chance for you to critique my hosting abilities after I went on about the importance of that role in another recent post!
Lost
Nancy Miller Gomez
A boy who was lost in the woods says a bear kept him company.
No one can prove it didn’t happen. —CNN
The bear felt the boy before she heard him,
sensed a disturbance deep in the knotweed,
and knew something was scared there.
At first, it unnerved her, but its cub-like crying
drew her closer, till a shift of wind
brought the unnatural smell
she’d learned to fear. She hesitated,
sniffed again. This was different.
Not so manlike or musky, it was nuanced
with sugar and sour milk.
She was cub-less that winter,
and drawn toward the hurt animal,
not with a hunger, but an ache.
The orphan had curled up
like a pup—nose to knees, whimpering.
She padded in, snuffing softly,
singing a lullaby of grunts and chuffs.
The child turned toward her musty breath,
reached his numb fingers out for her coarse coat.
She curled in her claws and lay down slowly,
settled herself so she wouldn’t crush him,
made her body into a cradle,
and tucked him into her. He dozed.
She stayed, that night and the next
as the temperature dropped below freezing.
He told her his stories—purple crayons,
night kitchens, magic pebbles.
She clicked her tongue and hummed
about meltwater and spring. When she heard
the far-off calls growing closer,
she licked the fringe of blond fur
on his forehead, nudged him awake, and left.
Back in the fold of his family, they noticed
his unwavering gaze, the way he hesitated
in doorways, grazing the air with his face,
scenting the room, as if always searching
for something he’d lost.
Nancy Miller Gomez’s first full-length collection is forthcoming from YesYes Books in 2024. She is the author of the chapbook, Punishment (Rattle chapbook series), a collection of poems and essays about her experience teaching in prisons and jails. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Best American Poetry, Best New Poets, Prairie Schooner, The Adroit Journal, TriQuarterly, New Ohio Review, Shenandoah, River Styx, Waxwing, Plume, The Rumpus, Rattle, Massachusetts Review, American Life in Poetry, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. She received a special mention in the 2023 Pushcart Prize Anthology. She co-founded an organization that provides writing workshops to incarcerated women and men and has taught poetry in Salinas Valley State Prison, the Santa Cruz County Jails, and the Juvenile Hall. She has worked as a waitress, a stable hand, an attorney, and a tv producer. She lives with her family in Santa Cruz, California. More at: nancymillergomez.com.