American Life in Poetry #128: Devon Regina DeSalva.

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

Our poet this week is 16-year-old Devon Regina DeSalva of Los Angeles, California, who says she wrote this poem to get back at her mother, only to find that her mother loved the poem.




Snip Your Hair


I'll snip your hair
Cut it all off until you look like a man
I will replace your weight loss bars with bars to make you gain
I will cut your credit cards in half
I will shrink all your clothes
Every trick in the book I will try
I will give all your shoes to the dog
I will do it all
Crazy is where you will be driven
Off a cliff you will want to jump
Then when I am all done
I will look at you with big doughy eyes
And I will say I am sorry
But I have my fingers crossed



American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Reprinted from "Untangled: Stories & Poems from the Women & Girls of WriteGirl," WriteGirl Publishers, 2006. Poem copyright (c) 2006 by WriteGirl Publishers and used by permission. Introduction copyright (c) 2006 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.




Also at Virtual Grub Street by/about Ted Kooser:

• The Ted Kooser Page: Links to online Interviews, Recordings, Poetry, Prose, Reviews, Photos and more;
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• American Life in Poetry #107: Naomi Shihab Nye;
• American Life in Poetry #86: Linda Pastan;
• American Life in Poetry #81: Tess Gallagher;
• American Life in Poetry #70: Sharon Olds;
• American Life in Poetry #68: Wendell Berry;
• American Life in Poetry #51: Jim Harrison;
• American Life in Poetry #26: Claudia Emerson;
• American Life in Poetry #11: David Wagoner;
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