#krysten hill

[othellho]

— "Nothing", Krysten Hill

[bostonpoetryslam]

Just as poems are spaces for discovery, for me, poems have also been spaces to document what I am unlearning.

Krysten Hill, for the Academy of American Poets

[lifeinpoetry]

I worry poems are nothing against it. My mama said that if I became a poet or a teacher, I’d make nothing, but I’ve thrown words like rocks and hit something in a room when I aimed for a window. One student says when he writes, it feels like nothing can stop him, and his laughter unlocks a door. He invites me into his living.

— Krysten Hill, from “Nothing,” published in Poem-a-Day

[eau1636]

Nothing

I ask a student how I can help her. Nothing is on her paper. It’s been that way for thirty-five minutes. She has a headache. She asks to leave early. Maybe I asked the wrong question. I’ve always been dumb with questions. When I hurt, I too have a hard time accepting advice or gentleness. I owe for an education that hurt, and collectors call my mama’s house. I do nothing about my unpaid bills as if that will help. I do nothing about the mold on my ceiling, and it spreads. I do nothing about the cat’s litter box, and she pisses on my new bath mat. Nothing isn’t an absence. Silence isn’t nothing. I told a woman I loved her, and she never talked to me again. I told my mama a man hurt me, and her hard silence told me to keep my story to myself. Nothing is full of something, a mass that grows where you cut at it.

-Krysten Hill

[bostonpoetryslam]

You come from a braided clan of women who held their tongues with their teeth. You tasted their blood in your sleep, women who planted their visions on the tongues of their daughters.

Tonight’s Cantab feature is local educator and writer Krysten Hill! This is from her poem “Women Who Go Missing,” via the New England Poetry Club.

[bostonpoetryslam]

The last time a hunter asked Do you wanna die, Bitch? You were on your way to something you loved. You said, Fine, but I’ll take you with me. What’s left but to lift your resolve? Float it like a ghost familiar with the wilderness.

Krysten Hill, “The Wounded Deer,” published in The Boiler

[lifeinpoetry]

Let them be mad

at the space you claim to make room

for your living. Keep your glare armed.

Point it at whatever wants you dead.

— Krysten Hill, from “The Wounded Deer,” published in The Boiler

[upthestaircasequarterly]

She’s the first person I let touch me all day. The smell of roses on her shoulder is a grace I don’t know I need until I’m already on my knees.

Krysten Hill, “Girl Breaking Glass” from Up the Staircase Quarterly #42