Michael Beard
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Michael Beard (he/him) currently studies poetry at the Bowling Green State University MFA program and serves as the managing editor for Mid-American Review. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Anti-Heroin Chic, Jupiter Review, the lickety~split, Bending Genres, and other places. He can be found on Twitter and Instagram @themichaelbeard.
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A Golden Shovel for My Grandmother
after Rita Dove
It takes a bundle of apricots to climb
death. Straight from the branch, sliced into
small pieces and stored away for a
lifetime. Dying is a kind of fermentation. A jar
of death waiting in the pantry, sour and
breathless—this is how I see you live.
What is any of this life for?
The whole sky is already busy with a
lullaby. You listen to the clouds while
everyone gathers blossoms to chill,
tiny frosts of remembrance. The earth
tightens its nightly lid so that no
body escapes to brush the calling stars.
I want to ask how it feels to be with-in
a body that betrays you, pink this-
tle and bone. We polish stone
so that one day it might reflect back the sky.
I should have visited you
last winter. What is there to have
in this life? The cancer ceased
for now but I can tell that you hate to
admit how such a good thing makes you ache.
So you wait for the indifferent hand to unseal your
apricot spirit, caught between the spine
of memory and morning. What is
a thing left unsaid? Lost and a
part of us, our trees silent in flower.
It takes a bundle of apricots to climb
death. Straight from the branch, sliced into
small pieces and stored away for a
lifetime. Dying is a kind of fermentation. A jar
of death waiting in the pantry, sour and
breathless—this is how I see you live.
What is any of this life for?
The whole sky is already busy with a
lullaby. You listen to the clouds while
everyone gathers blossoms to chill,
tiny frosts of remembrance. The earth
tightens its nightly lid so that no
body escapes to brush the calling stars.
I want to ask how it feels to be with-in
a body that betrays you, pink this-
tle and bone. We polish stone
so that one day it might reflect back the sky.
I should have visited you
last winter. What is there to have
in this life? The cancer ceased
for now but I can tell that you hate to
admit how such a good thing makes you ache.
So you wait for the indifferent hand to unseal your
apricot spirit, caught between the spine
of memory and morning. What is
a thing left unsaid? Lost and a
part of us, our trees silent in flower.
Commentary
Michael on “A Golden Shovel for My Grandmother”:
First, I must give absolute praise to Rita Dove and her poem “Pithos,” for my poem here would have never been written without it. What continuously draws me to Dove’s poem is how brief and quiet it is, tightly wrapped with an ending so instilled with this sense of release. Around the time I first read Dove’s poem, I was also reading Terrance Hayes’s Lighthead, and I became invested in his Golden Shovel form, particularly as a way to engage with another’s work. I think of the Golden Shovel form, too, as a natural expression of release, how the ending words of each line come together to form the original poem the writer is paying homage to—like a final, lasting breath.
Writing “A Golden Shovel for My Grandmother” was a way for me to process my relationship with my grandmother. This poem comes from an uncomfortable place; I find writing about family very difficult. Identifying and disclosing the intricacies of those relationships is hard, and these are things I need to get used to—being comfortable suspended in that vulnerability. This is a step toward that.
Editor-in-Chief Christine Taylor on “A Golden Shovel for My Grandmother”:
I love a good golden shovel, so I was excited to see one in our submissions for this issue. When I saw it was based on a Rita Dove poem, I became skeptical—like you can't go messin' around with Dove's work! So I was pleased to see Beard handle this work with creativity and care. I (and the other editors) really loved the use of language in this poem: Beard avoids common phrases to keep the reader engaged with lines like, "The whole sky is already busy with a / lullaby." All said, this is an honest and beautiful testament to the speaker's relationship with their grandmother and with life.
First, I must give absolute praise to Rita Dove and her poem “Pithos,” for my poem here would have never been written without it. What continuously draws me to Dove’s poem is how brief and quiet it is, tightly wrapped with an ending so instilled with this sense of release. Around the time I first read Dove’s poem, I was also reading Terrance Hayes’s Lighthead, and I became invested in his Golden Shovel form, particularly as a way to engage with another’s work. I think of the Golden Shovel form, too, as a natural expression of release, how the ending words of each line come together to form the original poem the writer is paying homage to—like a final, lasting breath.
Writing “A Golden Shovel for My Grandmother” was a way for me to process my relationship with my grandmother. This poem comes from an uncomfortable place; I find writing about family very difficult. Identifying and disclosing the intricacies of those relationships is hard, and these are things I need to get used to—being comfortable suspended in that vulnerability. This is a step toward that.
Editor-in-Chief Christine Taylor on “A Golden Shovel for My Grandmother”:
I love a good golden shovel, so I was excited to see one in our submissions for this issue. When I saw it was based on a Rita Dove poem, I became skeptical—like you can't go messin' around with Dove's work! So I was pleased to see Beard handle this work with creativity and care. I (and the other editors) really loved the use of language in this poem: Beard avoids common phrases to keep the reader engaged with lines like, "The whole sky is already busy with a / lullaby." All said, this is an honest and beautiful testament to the speaker's relationship with their grandmother and with life.
