Killing Floor by Ai
Houghton Mifflin Company (1979)
The Lamont Poetry Selection was established in 1954, from a bequest made by Mrs. Thomas W. Lamont, widow of the investment banker and partner at J.P. Morgan. This annual second-book award given by The Academy of American Poets includes money, publication the subsequent year, and the promise of 1,500 copies purchased by The Academy and distributed to its members. In 1995 this award was endowed by the Drue Heinz Trust and renamed the James Laughlin Award in honor of the poet, publisher, and editor at New Directions. Killing Floor was the 1978 Lamont Poetry Selection, chosen by Maxine Kumin, Philip Levine, and Charles Wright.
This visceral collection is a box of devils in waiting. Once the cover is opened, Ai’s other-worlds descend, wreak havoc on our quiet existence, and question our true relationship to empathy by creating a fully-imagined world of human suffering. All of us have violent notions; some might say a touch of evil. Ai gives a narrative to the full spectrum of human desire, and does so by showing us the things we want to do in anger, fear, lust, and greed. Ai expresses these horrors and nightmarish satisfactions with beauty and intelligence. Where others might be afraid to go, Ai pushes on without apologies.
THE EXPECTANT FATHER
The skin of my mouth, chewed raw, tastes good.
I get up, cursing, and find the bottle of Scotch.
My mouth burns as darkess [sic], lifting her skirt,
reveals daylight, a sleek left ankle.
The woman calls. I don’t answer.
I imagine myself coming up to my own door,
holding a reed basket in my arms.
Inside it there is a child,
with clay tablets instead of hands,
and my name is written on each one.
The woman calls me again and I go to her.
She reaches for me, but I move away.
I frown, pull back the covers to look at her.
So much going on outside;
the walls could cave in on us any time, any time.
I bring my face down
where the child’s head should be and press hard.
I feel pain, she’s pulling my hair.
I rise up, finally, and back away from the bed,
while she turns on her side
and drags her legs up to her chest.
I wait for her to cry,
then go into the kitchen.
I fix a Scotch and sit down at the table.
In six months, it is coming, in six months,
and I have no weapon against it.
OTHER LAMONT POETRY SELECTIONSLi Young Li, The City in Which I Love You (1991)
Sharon Olds, The Dead and the Living (1984)
Carolyn Forche, The Country Between Us (1981)
Lisel Mueller, The Private Life (1976)
Peter Everwine, Keeping the Night (1972)
Stephen Dobyns, Concurring Beast (1971)
Donald Justice, Summer Anniversaries (1959)
Donald Hall, Exiles and Marriages (1955)
Ai’s other books include Cruelty (1973); Sin (1986), which won an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation; Fate (1991); Greed (1993); Vice (1999), which won the National Book Award for Poetry; and Dread (2003). Good news for you--Ai's books undergo large print runs, which means they are easy to find in inexpensive used editions. To find a hardback first edition, featured here, you'll need to kick down around 25 to 50 dollars, though banged-up copies can be found for about 10.
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