Harryette Mullen

Posted in Past Guests  |  Tagged G-M

Harryette Mullen earned degrees in English and literature form the University of Texas at Austin and the University of California, Santa Cruz. She has worked in the Artists in Schools program, which is sponsored by the Texas Commission on the Arts. She has written numerous books of poetry, among them Muse & Drudge, S*PeRM**K*T, and Tree Tall Woman. Her works have received a PEN Beyond Margins Award and have been named finalists for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, as well as the Los Angeles Times Book Award in poetry. She was also the 2009 recipient of the Academy of American Poets Fellowship. Harryette Mullen teaches African American literature and creative writing in the English Department at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Wipe That Simile Off Your Aphasia

as horses as for
as purple as we go
as heartbeat as if
as silverware as it were
as onion as I can
as cherries as feared
as combustion as want
as dog collar as expected
as oboes as anyone
as umbrella as catch can
as penmanship as it gets
as narcosis as could be
as hit parade as all that
as icebox as far as I know
as fax machine as one can imagine
as cyclones as hoped
as dictionary as you like
as shadow as promised
as drinking fountain as well
as grassfire as myself
as mirror as is
as never as this

Links

• Review of Urban Tumbleweed by Carmen Giménez Smith. NPR. 6 November 2013.
• “‘The Cracks Between What We Are and What We Are Supposed to Be’: Stretching the Dialogue of African-American Poetry.” How2. March 2001.

Media

Societies of American Poetry: Dissenting Practices | February 21, 2003
Border Zones

Reading with John Taggart | September 19, 2000