Featured Poet: Jen Schneider
Jen Schneider is an educator who lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Pennsylvania. Recent works include A Collection of Recollections, Invisible Ink, On Habits & Habitats, and Blindfolds, Bruises, and Breakups.
RRR contributor, Pat Kelly, sat down with three of her poems and cooked up a few questions for the author.
PK: Obligatory first question: Tell us a little about yourself. Where did you come from? Where are you now?
JS: Ah, a deceptively complex question!...
I never know how to answer the question of where I’ve come from (for any of us, really). Honestly, I’m just grateful to be here.
For now, I live in Pennsylvania and work in Philadelphia. I do most of my writing up and down the East Coast.
PK: Poetry can often feel like an anachronistic mode of art in the 21st century, and I find that it takes an interestingly stubborn mind to take that journey. What experiences led you down this path? What started the fire, so to speak?
I can relate well to your sentiments and I often marvel at my good fortune to have discovered the joys of poetry in such times. I stumbled across poetry by chance (along one of many wayward paths) when I signed up for a workshop on a whim.
artificial sweeteners :: of dusk, dawn, & (day)break
i’d wake early
minutes before dawn
to watch him leave for work
burrowed eyebrows
framed lined spools
of rough terrain
& pigment-stained pain
perimeters etched of
faint maps
& wayward paths
to/of undeclared destinations
artificial sweeteners everywhere
his torso covered of faded pink stripes
– patterns of vertical
formation woven into button-downs
starched & stretched across shoulders
of horizontal tendencies
all limbs heavy
weighted of cranberry red thermos jugs
black coffee, cream & sugar
& army green coolers
insulated & insular
all contents piping hot
artificial sweeteners dally
i’d drag pint-sized limbs
weighted
of canned creamed corn
& fruit cocktail in heavy syrup
to watch.consume.contemplate.him
artificial sweeteners linger
he manned a fish store
turned butcher shop
sold goldfish (two for a dollar) out back
& swedish fish (five for a quarter) out front
anything for a buck
placed cardboard signs
advertising fresh fish & meat
on the sidewalk
& twisty bags of fresh carcass
in the alley
artificial sweeteners dawdle
i always wondered
what sort of man
could kill a fish, chop a cow,
then squeeze the neck of a lobster
all while whistling it’s a wonderful world
& kissing his offspring
atop freshly washed curls
with breath that bore the scent of death
artificial sweeteners layer
& see his own child writher
under the cut of harsh words
served daily – beet red
part of a well-balanced diet
& carry on
& whistle chirpy tunes
in air heavy of invisible elephants
attic & corduroy trunks