Braziel, Tina Mozelle

United States, (b. 1973)

FIRE REPLIES

  1. I do more
  2. than cast light.
  3.  
  4. I melt iron-
  5. draw blood
  6.  
  7. from this red
  8. mountain.
  9.  
  10. I am the hell
  11. that makes rust
  12.  
  13. rise stones float
  14. so all that is impure
  15.  
  16. can be skimmed
  17. away. I create
  18.  
  19. the molten body
  20. that fattening pig
  21.  
  22. iron suckling
  23. at the trough
  24.  
  25. named “sow.”
  26. Because of me
  27.  
  28. every railroad
  29. spike is a man’s
  30.  
  31. knuckle every
  32. bridge is a man
  33.  
  34. stretched too far.
  35. Hear the clanging
  36.  
  37. of hammer on anvil
  38. chanting:
  39.  
  40. good
  41. it is
  42.  
  43. good
  44. it is good.

© Tina Mozelle Braziel. PMS 7 | 2007. [now NELLE], Department of English Publications and College of Arts and Science, The University of Alabama at Birmingham. https://www.uab.edu/cas/englishpublications/nelle

About the Poet:

Tina Mozelle Braziel, United States, (b. 1973), poet, essayist and educator. Her poetry and essays have been published in a variety of journals including Red Mountain Review, Santa Clara Review, StorySouth, PMS and others. She has two books of poetry published, author of Known by Salt (2019) and Rooted by Thirst (2016)

Braziel is the Director of Ada Long Creative Writing Workshop at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, an intensive summer program for high school students interested in creative writing as a career or for personal enrichment.

In 2017, Braziel served as an artist-in-residence at Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas, and in 2013 she was awarded a scholarship to the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. She and her husband, novelist James Braziel, live and write in a glass cabin that they are building on Hydrangea Ridge in Remlap, Alabama.

Braziel has been published under these variations of her name: Tina Braziel, Tina Mozelle Braziel, T. Mozelle Harris and T. Harris. [DES-01/22]

Additional information:

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