Saint Nobody

Title Page, Copyright, Acknowledgments

1 Saint Nobody 2 This page intentionally left blank. 3 Saint Nobody poems Amy Lemmon Red Hen Press | Los Angeles, California 4 Saint Nobody Copyright © 2009 by Amy Lemmon All rights reserved No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of both the publisher and the copy right owner. ISBN: 978-1-59709-142-8 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2008942404 Layout by Sydney Nichols Cover image: The Welspoken Nobody (Detail from a broadsheet, ca. 1550) Courtesy Huntington Library. Reprinted by permission. The California Arts Council and the N ational Endowment for the Ar ts partially support Red Hen Press. Published by Red Hen Press www.redhen.org First Edition 5 Acknowledgements Grateful acknowledgement is made to the follo wing publications, where some of these poems have appeared previously, sometimes in a slightly different form: Antigonish Review: “Letter to Boston,” “A Day’s Work,” “End of the Urban Experiment,” and “Breaking Camp”; Barrow Street: “Karyotype” and “A Physick”; Blue Fifth Review: “Dinner with the Hugheses,” “Fantasy for Cello and Orchestra,” and “The feel of your mouth on my neck—”;Chattahoochee Review: “Feeding”; Cincinnati Review: “Autumn Remonstration”; Court Green: “Home Brew”; Crab Orchard Review: “Monday Night Contradance”; Eclectic Literary Forum: “Kindred” (Ruth Cable Memorial Prize); The Journal: “In-Patients”; Link: A Critical Journal on the Arts: “A Borrowed Book” and “Four Nocturnes”; Literal Latte: “Domestic Policy”; Los Angeles Review: “A Physics”; No-Tell Motel: “Rolling Rock I,” “Rolling Rock II,” “Rolling Rock III,” “The Puzzle,” and “Daze of 1987”; Pivot: “Margins”; Poems and Plays: “Monday Aubade”; Prairie Schooner: “Disclaimer,” “Saint Nobody,” and “Scar”; Rattapallax: “Fluidity”; The Same: “Vespers”; Spelunker Flophouse: “Hands”; Verse: “Deciding on Quandary”; Warbler: “Cardinal”; ZinkZine: “After DiChirico’s The Uncertainty of the Poet” and “Revival.” A group of these poems appears in the chapbook Fine Motor, winner of the Sow’s Ear Review Chapbook Prize, published Spring 2008. A selection appears in This Full Green Hour: An Anthology by the One O’Clock Poets (Sonopo Press, 2008). “A Physics” was selected by Wanda Coleman for the 2006 Ruskin Art Club Poetry Prize sponsored by Red Hen Press. The author wishes to thank the editors ofBarrow Street for nominating “Karyotype” for a Pushcart Prize. “Karyotype” was selected for limited edition publication by the Center for Book Ar ts Broadside series (November 2007) and also appears in Letters to the World: Poems from the WOM-PO Listserv (Red Hen Press, 2008). “Scar” and “Deciding on Quandary” also appear inDiscovering Genre: Poetry (Prestwick House, 2006). 6 Much appreciation is due to my family, especially Dave and Judy Lemmon, for support throughout the long process of creating this book. Thanks to Bob Bowen for believing and helping to make it possible. I also wish to thank, most sincer ely, the teachers, mentors, and friends whose suggestions and encouragement hav e been invaluable: Don Bogen, Peter Covino, Ann Darby, Sharon Dolin, Vicki Forman, Stacey Harwood, Scott Hightower, Michael Hyde, David Lehman, Anna C ypra Oliver, Michael Peich, Chelsea Rathburn, D avid J. Rothman, Greg Sanders, Carly Sachs, Stanley Solomon, Mark Strand, Ann Townsend, and Dylan Willoughby. Thanks, also, to the Antioch Writers’ Workshop, Port Townsend Writers’ Conference, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the West Chester Poetry Conference , and the Teaching Institute of the Fashion Institute of Technology for support in the writing and revision of these poems. Cheers to the One O’Clock Poets—first readers, best readers: Guillermo Castro, Shira Dentz, Katie Johntz, Katrinka Moore, Martie McCleery Palar, Joan Lauri Poole, Elizabeth Poreba, and Sarah Stern. A cold Rolling Rock to T.E.S., inspiration for the “you” in most of Part II. Kisses to the huSS ies for sonnets and lo ve: Moira Egan, Tatyana Mishel, Marilyn L. Taylor, and Kathrine Varnes. Ne plus ultra: Kim Addonizio, Denise Duhamel, and Molly Peacock. ...