Addonizio, Kim

United States, (b. 1954)

Dream-Pig

  1. It was following me so I killed it,
  2. I felt kind of bad but it was following me
  3. so I cut off the head with scissors,
  4. the neck was thin and rubbery, easy to sever,
  5. it wasn’t a bad pig-more like a dog
  6. that hasn’t been trained,
  7. it’s not the dog’s fault.
  8. Maybe it was lost and needed my help
  9. but I didn’t like seeing it every time
  10. I turned around. Are you with me on this one?
  11. Don’t waste a thought on that pig.
  12. Never mind how it bled
  13. without making a sound, black welling up
  14. under the scissors. Did I say they were shears?
  15. Never mind the shears.
  16. This is an in my head, all right? Forget it.
  17. It could have been a boy, four, maybe five
  18. years old. It had that trusting look.
  19.  •     •     •
  20. Though come to think of it
  21. there was something thievish
  22. in the corners of the eyes,
  23. They were pinking shears,
  24. with saw-toothed blades. I killed it
  25. so it would stop. What did I have
  26. that it could want? This was just a stupid dream
  27. about a pig. Stupid dream. Stupid pig.

 Kim Addonizio. Lucifer at the Starlite: Poems. New York: W. W. Norton & Company (2010).

About the Poet:

Kim Addonizio, United States, (b. 1954), is a poet and educator. She attended college in San Francisco, earning both her BA and MA from San Francisco State University, and has spent much of her adult life in the Bay Area. She currently teaches in the MFA program at Goddard College and lives in San Francisco.

Kim Addonizio is the author of seven poetry collections, two novels, two story collections, and two books on writing poetry: The Poet’s Companion (with Dorianne Laux) and Ordinary Genius. Her poetry collection Tell Me was a finalist for the National Book Award. She also has two word/music CDS: Swearing, Smoking, Drinking, & Kissing (with Susan Browne) and My Black Angel, the companion to My Black Angel: Blues Poems and Portraits, a collaboration with woodcut artist Charles D. Jones.

Addonizio has received numerous awards for her work, including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, a Pushcart Prize, and the John Ciardi Lifetime Achievement Award. [DES-06/22]

 • 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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