Whittington, Janice

United States, (b. 1946)

Feral

  1. Wild hogs saunter beside Highway 62,
  2. wander into the brush
  3. as if we don’t matter,
  4. as if they own the Breaks,
  5. land that earned its name,
  6. strewn with wagons abandoned
  7. like sloughed snake skins,
  8. its arroyos cut for hooves
  9. or sinuous bellies rubbing against sandstone
  10. in hard rattles.
  11.  
  12. Dumped a generation ago
  13. from Georgia wagons swallowed by sand,
  14. some hogs withered,
  15. but others ran squalling in the heat
  16. and dug into shade.
  17. Now wild hogs own the breaks, their hides
  18. tough, ignoring mesquite thorns and scrub.
  19.  
  20. At night, they skulk near asphalt,
  21. luring sharp-sighted young men
  22. who wear tight Levis
  23. and starched shirts, those
  24. who strut their chests in Dodge trucks
  25. with duals and a gun rack in the rear window,
  26. ease through the backwoods on moonlit nights,
  27. hands wrapped around longnecks
  28. or thighs of blondes with big hair,
  29. searching the breaks
  30. for hogs.

 Janice Whittington. Into a Thousand Mouths. Lubbock, TX: Texas Tech University Press (1999).

About the Poet:

Janice D. Whittington, United States, (b. 1946), is a poet and educator. She has taught English and writing for more than thirty years at the high school level, most currently at Lubbock High School in Lubbock, TX. Whittington is the author of the poetry book Into a Thousand Mouths, poetry chapbook Does My Father Dream of Sons? and is co-editor of The Waltz He Was Born For: An Introduction to the Writing of Walt McDonald.

Whittington is a member of the Lubbock, Texas Ad Hoc Writing Group who share and critique their own current works – published as well as works-in-progress and do public readings. She has had poems published in journals such as The Beloit Poetry Journal, Touchstone, Mississippi Valley Review, Kansas Quarterly, Writer’s Forum, Southern Poetry Review and others. [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.

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