Rooftop Poetry Club - Dennis Reed

Dennis Reed
reeddj@buffalostate.edu

Bio:
Dennis works in Butler Library's Media Services, helping maintain various library Web pages (including this one) and fielding questions from students. He is also a graduate student at Buffalo State, working toward his M.A. in English.

He first became interested in poetry in the 2nd grade, where he quickly discovered that writing poems was a reliable way of escaping handwriting drills. His first poem concerned a "sunny sun" that "shone on everyone" that "day that [he] went out to play." Dennis tackled darker themes in subsequent efforts that year, including a meditation on the hazards of frostbite, and a tale of a vacationing witch whose chief delight was "witchy soda."

His first memorable encounter with the poetry of others came in the 9th grade, with the acquisition of a 25-pound, jacketless, frayed, blue anthology of American and British poetry at a local flea market. At lunch time Dennis would tote the massive volume into the cafeteria to read aloud to other classmates--thus putting to rest any early speculation that he might find a date for his senior prom. Whitman, Keats, Shelley, and Millay were immediate favorites. Dennis has since made amends with Emily Dickenson, whose six pages of poems he had ostentatiously torn out of the big blue anthology in front of his lunch-time friends when the poems' meanings remained obstinately hidden after two readings.

After high school, Dennis resumed writing his own poetry. He haunted readings in the Buffalo area, and had a poem published in the small, discriminating, Lockport-based Words on Paper Press. The Buffalo State literary publication Portrait also selected a half-dozen of his submissions for publication between 1996 and 2003. His future plans include eating eggs, and finishing Finnegans Wake this weekend.

Poems:

Last Night's Light (2)

I decided I really wanted to write.
I decided I would start local.
I decided on a target audience,
and a theme.
I decided on a few small and, hence,
vulnerable publications.

I decided the 9 to 5 was a crime
against my own vaulting ambition.
I decided to take my argument
to the People, and to
let them tell me if it had merit.

I decided that I would no longer trust
in the perspicacity of middle managers,
but would take my chances with
the caprice of trade winds;

I decided to appoint myself prophet to those
in the black grip of summer blockbusters
and novelty ring-tones;
of social and legal contracts of every stripe.

I decided I would have to lead by example,
and that, since the way would surely be long and treacherous,
I would have to leave behind
anything too heavy for me to carry:
my jealousy, my selfish grief, my piano.

I decided to join a poetry club:
to go underground on a rooftop.

I decided that today really was tomorrow,
and that today was the only way to
make tomorrow happen.

I decided, in short, to follow my heart,
and then my heart changed directions.

Getting Lost

those summer nights are just too huge
to carry around;
too vast to hand to you
the way I want.

how to get a hold of:
moisture held aloft in the warm folds of the wind...
yellow stars swelling and shuddering in the sympathetic ether...
the lake shedding skin after aromatic skin...
hot sand at midnight, hissing under our blanket...
your milky breath in my ear,
and a love act performed in full view
of countless galaxies...?

I can give you this tattered half of a map,
but it will be useless unless
you have the other half:
unless you've already found these places for yourself

For Blake

the soft, newly-living eyes of Eurydice;
the burning husk of carefree Gomorrah;
the once-lovely head of Gorgon Medusa,
crowned with snakes;

these are the Gates of Paradise
these are the necessary fire-paths

and we are not fooled.