Fanny Says Page 10
I also thank those that generously gave me a place to hide away and write: Katie Mead and Robert Alexander, for time and space in your cabin in almost-Canada, Michigan (“Fanny Linguistics: Thaumatology” is for you); Doug Melkovitz and Lee Fleming, for offering me your sweet cabin in way-out-where-no-one-will-find-me Arkansas; Dennis Maloney and Elaine LaMattina, for surrounding me with the beauty of Big Sur, a place so sacred I didn’t dare waste a day. I’d also like to thank the English Department at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, in particular Dean Deborah Baldwin and Trey Philpotts for the summer research grants that gave me time to revise these poems, and especially David Jauss, my colleague and longtime mentor. I also want to give a nod to my phenomenal gaggle of students—at UALR, Murray State, and Sewanee—for tolerating the fact that Fanny seems to boss her way into nearly every workshop I teach. I’d also like to mention Eloise Klein Healy: though you lost your words a few years ago, I know you’ll recover. In the meantime, I still hear you talking to me, giving me the best advice an Arktoi bear could want.
I’d like to thank three organizations: First, the National Endowment for the Arts, because with their support, I was able to make the changes in my life that led to the completion of this book. Secondly, the Kentucky Foundation for Women—years ago, they lent me the encouragement to write down my grandmother’s stories while I still had her, and it’s no understatement to say that without their generosity, these poems would not exist. Finally, BOA Editions: Peter Conners, you convinced me to send you this manuscript, and it wasn’t but a few months later that you wrote me about your own grandmother Bema, then sent me a contract. I can’t quite believe my luck knowing you in this world. Sandy Knight, your design crafted a sweet cover in Fanny’s color. Jenna Fisher and Melissa Hall, you two make a firecracker of a team up there in Rochester with Peter, and I can’t thank you enough for your hard work. It’s not easy birthing collections of poetry into the stream of books published each year, I know. You can always count on me for chocolates around Christmastime.
Finally, Jessica Jacobs—my reader, my witness, my wife. You’ve read these poems more times than anyone and, still, you believe in them. Your faith and love are a miracle.
About the Author
Nickole Brown grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, and Deerfield Beach, Florida. Her books include her debut, Sister, a novel-in-poems published by Red Hen Press in 2007, and an anthology, Air Fare, that she co-edited with Judith Taylor. She graduated from The Vermont College of Fine Arts, studied literature at Oxford University as an English Speaking Union Scholar, and was the editorial assistant for the late Hunter S. Thompson. She has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Kentucky Foundation for Women, and the Kentucky Arts Council. She worked at the independent, literary press, Sarabande Books, for ten years, and she was the National Publicity Consultant for Arktoi Books and the Palm Beach Poetry Festival. She has taught creative writing at the University of Louisville, Bellarmine University, and at the low-residency MFA Program in Creative Writing at Murray State and the Sewanee Young Writers’ Conference. Currently, she is the Editor for the Marie Alexander Series in Prose Poetry at White Pine Press and is an Assistant Professor at University of Arkansas at Little Rock. She lives with her wife, poet Jessica Jacobs.
BOA Editions, Ltd. American Poets Continuum Series
No. 1
The Fuhrer Bunker: A Cycle of Poems in Progress
W. D. Snodgrass
No. 2
She
M. L. Rosenthal
No. 3
Living With Distance
Ralph J. Mills, Jr.
No. 4
Not Just Any Death
Michael Waters
No. 5
That Was Then: New and Selected Poems
Isabella Gardner
No. 6
Things That Happen Where There Aren’t Any People
William Stafford
No. 7
The Bridge of Change: Poems 1974–1980
John Logan
No. 8
Signatures
Joseph Stroud
No. 9
People Live Here: Selected Poems 1949–1983
Louis Simpson
No. 10
Yin
Carolyn Kizer
No. 11
Duhamel: Ideas of Order in Little Canada
Bill Tremblay
No. 12
Seeing It Was So
Anthony Piccione
No. 13
Hyam Plutzik: The Collected Poems
No. 14
Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969–1980
Lucille Clifton
No. 15
Next: New Poems
Lucille Clifton
No. 16
Roxa: Voices of the Culver Family
William B. Patrick
No. 17
John Logan: The Collected Poems
No. 18
Isabella Gardner: The Collected Poems
No. 19
The Sunken Lightship
Peter Makuck
No. 20
The City in Which I Love You
Li-Young Lee
No. 21
Quilting: Poems 1987–1990
Lucille Clifton
No. 22
John Logan: The Collected Fiction
No. 23
Shenandoah and Other Verse Plays
Delmore Schwartz
No. 24
Nobody Lives on Arthur Godfrey Boulevard
Gerald Costanzo
No. 25
The Book of Names: New and Selected Poems
Barton Sutter
No. 26
Each in His Season
W. D. Snodgrass
No. 27
Wordworks: Poems Selected and New
Richard Kostelanetz
No. 28
What We Carry
Dorianne Laux
No. 29
Red Suitcase
Naomi Shihab Nye
No. 30
Song
Brigit Pegeen Kelly
No. 31
The Fuehrer Bunker: The Complete Cycle
W. D. Snodgrass
No. 32
For the Kingdom
Anthony Piccione
No. 33
The Quicken Tree
Bill Knott
No. 34
These Upraised Hands
William B. Patrick
No. 35
Crazy Horse in Stillness
William Heyen
No. 36
Quick, Now, Always
Mark Irwin
No. 37
I Have Tasted the Apple
Mary Crow
No. 38
The Terrible Stories
Lucille Clifton
No. 39
The Heat of Arrivals
Ray Gonzalez
No. 40
Jimmy & Rita
Kim Addonizio
No. 41
Green Ash, Red Maple, Black Gum
Michael Waters
No. 42
Against Distance
Peter Makuck
No. 43
The Night Path
Laurie Kutchins
No. 44
Radiography
Bruce Bond
No. 45
At My Ease: Uncollected Poems of the Fifties and Sixties
David Ignatow
No. 46
Trillium
Richard Foerster
No. 47
Fuel
Naomi Shihab Nye
No. 48
Gratitude
Sam Hamill
No. 49
Diana, Charles, & the Queen
William Heyen
No. 50
Plus Shipping
Bob Hicok
No. 51
Cabato Sentora
Ray Gonzalez
No. 52
We Didn’t Come Here for This
William B. Patrick
No. 53
The Vandals
Alan Michael Parker
No. 54
To Get Here
Wendy Mnookin
No. 55
Living Is What I Wanted: Last Poems
David Ignatow
No. 56
Dusty Angel
Michael Blumenthal
No. 57
The Tiger Iris
Joan Swift
No. 58
White City
Mark Irwin
No. 59
Laugh at the End of the World: Collected Comic Poems 1969–1999
Bill Knott
No. 60
Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems: 1988–2000
Lucille Clifton
No. 61
Tell Me
Kim Addonizio
No. 62
Smoke
Dorianne Laux
No. 63
Parthenopi: New and Selected Poems
Michael Waters
No. 64
Rancho Notorious
Richard Garcia
No. 65
Jam
Joe-Anne McLaughlin
No. 66
A. Poulin, Jr. Selected Poems
Edited, with an Introduction
by Michael Waters
No. 67
Small Gods of Grief
Laure-Anne Bosselaar
No. 68
Book of My Nights
Li-Young Lee
No. 69
Tulip Farms and Leper Colonies
Charles Harper Webb
No. 70
Double Going
Richard Foerster
No. 71
What He Took
Wendy Mnookin
No. 72
The Hawk Temple at Tierra Grande
Ray Gonzalez
No. 73
Mules of Love
Ellen Bass
No. 74
The Guests at the Gate
Anthony Piccione
No. 75
Dumb Luck
Sam Hamill
No. 76
Love Song with Motor Vehicles
Alan Michael Parker
No. 77
Life Watch
Willis Barnstone
No. 78
The Owner of the House: New Collected Poems 1940–2001
Louis Simpson
No. 79
Is
Wayne Dodd
No. 80
Late
Cecilia Woloch
No. 81
Precipitates
Debra Kang Dean
No. 82
The Orchard
Brigit Pegeen Kelly
No. 83
Bright Hunger
Mark Irwin
No. 84
Desire Lines: New and Selected Poems
Lola Haskins
No. 85
Curious Conduct
Jeanne Marie Beaumont
No. 86
Mercy
Lucille Clifton
No. 87
Model Homes
Wayne Koestenbaum
No. 88
Farewell to the Starlight in Whiskey
Barton Sutter
No. 89
Angels for the Burning
David Mura
No. 90
The Rooster’s Wife
Russell Edson
No. 91
American Children
Jim Simmerman
No. 92
Postcards from the Interior
Wyn Cooper
No. 93
You & Yours
Naomi Shihab Nye
No. 94
Consideration of the Guitar: New and Selected Poems 1986–2005
Ray Gonzalez
No. 95
Off-Season in the Promised Land
Peter Makuck
No. 96
The Hoopoe’s Crown
Jacqueline Osherow
No. 97
Not for Specialists: New and Selected Poems
W. D. Snodgrass
No. 98
Splendor
Steve Kronen
No. 99
Woman Crossing a Field
Deena Linett
No. 100
The Burning of Troy
Richard Foerster
No. 101
Darling Vulgarity
Michael Waters
No. 102
The Persistence of Objects
Richard Garcia
No. 103
Slope of the Child Everlasting
Laurie Kutchins
No. 104
Broken Hallelujahs
Sean Thomas Dougherty
No. 105
Peeping Tom’s Cabin: Comic Verse 1928–2008
X. J. Kennedy
No. 106
Disclamor
G.C. Waldrep
No. 107
Encouragement for a Man Falling to His Death
Christopher Kennedy
No. 108
Sleeping with Houdini
Nin Andrews
No. 109
Nomina
Karen Volkman
No. 110
The Fortieth Day
Kazim Ali
No. 111
Elephants & Butterflies
Alan Michael Parker
No. 112
Voices
Lucille Clifton
No. 113
The Moon Makes Its Own Plea
Wendy Mnookin
No. 114
The Heaven-Sent Leaf
Katy Lederer
No. 115
Struggling Times
Louis Simpson
No. 116
And
Michael Blumenthal
No. 117
Carpathia
Cecilia Woloch
No. 118
Seasons of Lotus, Seasons of Bone
Matthew Shenoda
No. 119
Sharp Stars
Sharon Bryan
No. 120
Cool Auditor
Ray Gonzalez
No. 121
Long Lens: New and Selected Poems
Peter Makuck
No. 122
Chaos Is the New Calm
Wyn Cooper
No. 123
Diwata
Barbara Jane Reyes
No. 124
Burning of the Three Fires
Jeanne Marie Beaumont
No. 125
Sasha Sings the Laundry on the Line
Sean Thomas Dougherty
No. 126
Your Father on the Train of Ghosts
G.C. Waldrep and John Gallaher
No. 127
Ennui Prophet
Christopher Kennedy
No. 128
Transfer
Naomi Shihab Nye
No. 129
Gospel Night
Michael Waters
No. 130
The Hands of Strangers: Poems from the Nursing Home
Janice N. Harrington
No. 131
Kingdom Animalia
Aracelis Girmay
No. 132
True Faith
Ira Sadoff
No. 133
The Reindeer Camps and Other Poems
Barton Sutter
No. 134
The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton: 1965–2010
No. 135
To Keep Love Blurry
Craig Morgan Teicher
No. 136
Theophobia
Bruce Beasley
No. 137
Refuge
Adrie Kusserow
No. 138
The Book of Goodbyes
Jillian Weise
No. 139
Birth Marks
Jim Daniels
No. 140
No Need of Sympathy
> Fleda Brown
No. 141
There’s a Box in the Garage You Can Beat with a Stick
Michael Teig
No. 142
The Keys to the Jail
Keetje Kuipers
No. 143
All You Ask for Is Longing: New and Selected Poems 1994–2014
Sean Thomas Dougherty
No. 144
Copia
Erika Meitner
No. 145
The Chair: Prose Poems
Richard Garcia
No. 146
In a Landscape
John Gallaher
No. 147
Fanny Says
Nickole Brown
Colophon
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