United States, (b. 1952)
The Preparatory Fire for the Hog
- The air is sharp, colder than the shallow river that has started to freeze, a thin pane of ice growing just off the banks, the first week of January when the ground is hard, and the woods, a shame of naked trees shattered among the evergreens, deer beds in the tall brown grass on the other side of the pig pen fence, the enclosed grubbed field that doesn’t have a root, blade of grass or a weed, and the family is in heavy coats and mud-boots, there is an array of sharpened knives, a prayer of abundance, the work of harvesting pork, a twelve year-old boy hauls firewood to the steel trough where he will heat the water to scald the dead hog.
Gary Copeland Lilley. The Hog Killing Poems. Redondo Beach, CA: Blue Horse Press (2018).
The Choices for the Pistol and the Knife
- The men have gathered around the thick steel rod at the end of the trough where the fire has been built and as usual someone has a pint of shine and it is passed around as they look over the hogs all gathered in the far comer of the pen, you can see the last breaths of every chosen animal; and every man, woman, and child has a job to do, the day promises to be as cold and hard as the ground they are standing on, because having enough food can keep you from feeling like you’re poor, every man wiping his mouth knows that, knows how to deal with hunger that comes from the child belly, so two of the older boys are chosen; the one with the almost-mustache and the tall one home from the Army, they will kill the hogs.
Gary Copeland Lilley. The Hog Killing Poems. Redondo Beach, CA: Blue Horse Press (2018).
The Marys
- The five married women are in the kitchen, skillet cooking slices of fresh pork which will be the sandwiches served for lunch with cold Coca-Cola; they laugh and joke about their
husbands to the other wives, but nobody talks about any husband but their own, that is their code, no mentions of drunks, beaters or ramblers, never recollections of other lovers lest his name be Jesus, and the loudest woman is already working on the evening meal, more fresh pork, macaroni and cheese, string beans from the fall canning, pear preserves and scratch biscuits for desert, coffee with sugar and cream, the kitchen windows sweating from all the contained heat.
Gary Copeland Lilley. The Hog Killing Poems. Redondo Beach, CA: Blue Horse Press (2018).
The Granddaughters and the Queen-Mother
- The young women, and the girls, clean the guts delivered by the washtub-full, blooded and blue-tinted ropes steaming the unfinished business of the pig into the overcast day, a stab of stench to soon be gone, bucket after the bucket of cold water, and they are delivered translucent and clean to the matriarch who sits at a wooden work table set in the yard, where the boy has built a fire nearby, and she grinds the fresh pig meat, adds the salt, black pepper, a touch of nutmeg, the sage, sprinkles of parsley and red pepper flakes, packs it all and creates the links of sausage, the savory chain of before-sunrise breakfasts that will hang from the rafters of the smokehouse.
Gary Copeland Lilley. The Hog Killing Poems. Redondo Beach, CA: Blue Horse Press (2018).
About the Poet:
Gary Copeland Lilley, United States, (b. 1952), is a poet and blues guitarist. Lilley was a longtime resident and blues denizen of Washington, DC and Chicago. He currently lives in Port Townsend, WA. He earned his MFA from the Warren Wilson College Program for Creative Writers.
Lilley is the author of eight books of poetry, the most recent being The Bushman’s Medicine Show (2017). He has been published in numerous anthologies and journals, including Best American Poetry 2014, Willow Springs, The Swamp, Waxwing, Taos International Journal of Poetry, African American Review and others. He is a Cave Canem Fellow and received the Washington DC Commission on the Arts Fellowship for Poetry. [DES-07/22]
• Biographies here are short. Yet all the poets presented have fascinating lives. And they have created a bountiful trough of treasures beyond these works. Please root on about those you enjoy! I hope you find something informative, meaningful or that provokes your further contemplation.