Episode #058 Stammer - Cynthia Cruz

A day late but it's here! Connor and Jack explore the haunting poem, “Stammer,” by Cynthia Cruz. They delight in the incredible sounds of the poem, think about what makes this poem difficult, and consider how this poem shows one way of engaging with the traumatic or inexpressible.

Read the poem below.



More on Cynthia Cruz, here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/cynthia-cruz

Check out the Washington Square Review here: http://www.washingtonsquarereview.com/latest-issue


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Stammer

By: Cynthia Cruz

There is the story my mother used to tell.

How she woke at three A.M.

from a dream that her mother died.

And she did. At three A.M.

It’s like that:

visceral and animal.

The silver grammar of vanish.

A soft violence

pushing up against me—

soundless,

its static,

satelliting music.

Even now, it is there

on the edge, on the periphery.

When I stand in the light before the mirror

it is overpowering.

And always, without end.