Reading 鈥淲hat a Waste鈥� to College Boys
by Jill McDonough
I write a poem called 鈥淲hat a Waste鈥� about Josey,
about how even though sometimes I want to devour
her whole, it鈥檚 up to her what happens to the only
body she has. I think this is a funny poem. I think
I鈥檓 making a joke about consent, desire, marriage.
Maybe lesbian bed death? Middle age? I don鈥檛 know.
This may be too meta, even for me. Anyway, I read it
to some students while I鈥檓 a visiting writer. Two white
boys raise their soft and earnest hands鈥�so young!
鈥攚ant to share with me and everyone else
in the room their wide-eyed stories, how sometimes girls
with beautiful bodies just don鈥檛 want to fuck them.
They both spoke with a kind of wonder, like I get it,
right? Like, how can that even be? And we shook
our heads at the sad injustice of it. Sometimes even I
can鈥檛 tell when I am kidding anymore. I said I know,
man. Other people鈥檚 bodies aren鈥檛 for us. It sucks, right?
And they nodded, taking that in, thinking it over, I guess
for the very first time. Poetry, getting so much nothing done.
I hate it when my students tell me 鈥淚t really happened like that,鈥� since who cares, but here we go. Just like I say in the poem, I was a visiting writer for a college writing class and one of the poems I read out loud was .听
And the earnest, awed recognition in the boy students鈥� responses was funny and also horrifying. I am not sure it had ever occurred to them that other people鈥檚 bodies aren鈥檛 for them. They for sure had no problem talking about it out loud, 鈥渢he sad injustice of it,鈥� no embarrassment about admitting it, in the face of my apparent lack of embarrassment. So, great! English class got to be about desire and consent, for a minute. They had an epiphany and I got to be there for it. Poetry!
is the author of Here All Night; Reaper; Where You Live; Oh, James!; and Habeas Corpus. The recipient of three Pushcart prizes and fellowships from the Lannan Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fine Arts Work Center, the New York Public Library, the Library of Congress, and Stanford鈥檚 Stegner program, she taught incarcerated college students through Boston University鈥檚 Prison Education Program for thirteen years. Her work has appeared in POETRY, Slate, The Nation, The Threepenny Review, and The Best American Poetry. McDonough teaches in the MFA program at UMass-Boston and started a program offering college reading and writing in two Boston jails.