Episode 7
Cassandra de Alba and Amy Lowell
Cassandra de Alba has published several chapbooks including habitats by Horse Less Press in 2016, Ugly/Sad by Glass Poetry Press in 2020, and Cryptids, which was co-authored with Aly Pierce and published by Ginger Bug Press in 2020. Her work has appeared in The Shallow Ends, Big Lucks, Wax Nine, The Baffler, Verse Daily, and others.
Amy Lowell was born in 1874 in Brookline, Massachusetts. She was educated in private schools in Boston and at her home. Lowell’s first significant poetry publication came in 1910 when her poem “Fixed Idea” was published in the Atlantic Monthly. Two years later, her book A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass was published by Houghton Mifflin. She went on to write several other books of poetry, and she was a key figure in the Imagist movement led by Ezra Pound. She wrote a major biography of the poet John Keats, which was published in 1925, the same year in which she died. Lowell’s book What’s O’Clock won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1926.
Links:
Cassandra de Alba
Three poems in Dear Poetry Journal
"Self-Portrait with Rabbit Ears and Seventeen" at Verse Daily
Amy Lowell
Transcript
Welcome to The Beat. Today we’ll hear the poet Cassandra de Alba read her poems “i wore my boots like she always did,” “music video treatments for a song in which I don’t get what I want,” and “let’s go back.” She’ll follow by reading the poem “Taxi” by Amy Lowell.
Cassandra de Alba:"i wore my boots like she always did &"
i plucked a bee off the sidewalk this morning
& she was still dead
i kept clumsily dropping it
on my way to something sweet
& a car full of girls watching me pick it up
for the third time
called me a humanitarian
i took a picture of the new flowers i left it on
& she was still dead
the flowers weren’t there yesterday & how
dare they, showing up to a world without her in it—
but they had been here, only different,
buds waiting to become themselves
i walked past them yesterday & knew
it would be soon,
the idea of the flowers waiting
inside their green bodies
it was like that, too, the idea
of her death—we all knew
what would come—
but still, what a surprise,
when in the morning
all those bright blooms.
"music video treatments for a song in which I don’t get what I want"
a warped cassette collapses
as it plays, catches fire,
burns down the small room
where I am a dark shape
against white walls.
a slow tracking shot centers me
in an empty concrete basement
as I silently vomit silver glitter
from a standing position.
my heart melts through my chest
thick and waxy
and puddles on the floor.
the puddle dries to a high shine.
a boot comes down and cracks it.
an object in the sky
is revealed to be my right hand,
poorly manicured,
with its fingers crossed.
the assembled birds
attack and devour.
"let’s go back"
take this vending machine ring
with its cracked plastic jewel.
shove it on my dirty finger
like marriage isn’t the punchline
to a joke your mother tells.
let’s run away to the woods—
i have three peanut-butter sandwiches
& seven chapter books.
let’s pretend our parents are as dead
as they will be in a decade.
let’s fall through the floor
of a rotting tree fort.
between us we can almost
light a match, so what
does the world have left
to teach us?
your boots are strong enough
to survive the winter.
my hair is long enough
to hide behind forever.
who could imagine
anything else to need?
"The Taxi" By Amy Lowell
When I go away from you
The world beats dead
Like a slackened drum.
I call out for you against the jutted stars
And shout into the ridges of the wind.
Streets coming fast,
One after the other,
Wedge you away from me,
And the lamps of the city prick my eyes
So that I can no longer see your face.
Why should I leave you,
To wound myself upon the sharp edges of the night?
Alan May:You just heard Cassandra de Alba read her poems “i wore my boots like she always did,” “music video treatments for a song in which I don’t get what I want,” and “let’s go back.” She followed with “Taxi” by Amy Lowell. De Alba was kind enough to record these poems for us at her home in Massachusetts. Cassandra de Alba has published several chapbooks including habitats by Horse Less Press in twenty sixteen, Ugly/Sad by Glass Poetry Press in twenty twenty, and Cryptids, which was co-authored with Aly Pierce and published by Ginger Bug Press in twenty twenty. Her work has appeared in The Shallow Ends, Big Lucks, Wax Nine, The Baffler, Verse Daily, and others. Amy Lowell was born in eighteen seventy-four in Brookline, Massachusetts. She was educated in private schools in Boston and at her home. Lowell’s first significant publication came in nineteen ten when her poem “Fixed Idea” was published in the Atlantic Monthly. She was 36 years old. Two years later, her book A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass was published by Houghton Mifflin. She went on to write several other books of poetry, and she was a key figure in the Imagist movement led by Ezra Pound. She wrote a major biography of the poet John Keats, which was published in nineteen twenty-five, the same year in which she died. Lowell’s book What’s O’Clock won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in nineteen twenty-six. You can find books by Cassandra de Alba and Amy Lowell in our online catalog. Also, look for links in the show notes. Please join us next time for The Beat.
