In fifth grade, I bopped a girl on the head with my Dixon Ticonderoga pencils. (I only used Dixon Ticonderogas back then. I was very particular about my pencils.) Bop-boppety-bop-bop, I sang, using her head as a drum. She started to cry. The girl’s name was Madeline, and she wore a mini-midi-maxi to school that day. She showed off how she could tear off or add a layer. Velcro! she said. We’d never seen Velcro before. She spent all day showing off her layers. By the end of the day, in homeroom, she was wearing her mini skirt displaying her legs and flirting with a boy I liked. I don’t know if that’s why I bopped her. But I do remember her legs, soft and pale, like unbaked bread. I wanted to bite them.

Nin Andrews

Received her BA from Hamilton College and her MFA from Vermont College. The recipient of two Ohio Arts Council grants, she is the author of several books including The Book of Orgasms; Spontaneous Breasts; Why They Grow Wings; Midlife Crisis with Dick and Jane; Sleeping with Houdini; Dear Professor, Do You Live in a Vacuum; and Southern Comfort. She also edited Someone Wants to Steal My Name, a book of translations of the French poet, Henri Michaux.

A two-time recipient of an Ohio Arts Council grant, Ms. Andrews has published work in many literary reviews and anthologies, including Best American Poetry, The Best of the Prose Poem, The Virginia Quarterly, The Paris Review, and Ploughshares.

www.ninandrews.com

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Interview with Poet Nin Andrews by Leah Umansky in Luna Luna (November 2013), which includes an explanation of the genesis of the orgasm poems

⚡ Adolescence in The Prose Poem at Web del Sol

⚡ Spontaneous Breasts in The Prose Poem at Web del Sol

⚡ What You Have to Listen To, poem posted 26 March 2014 by Nin Andrews at her blog

⚡ Literary Comics and Fracking Comics

⚡ Advanced Women Poets: Books You May Only Be Hearing About Now by Denise Duhamel in Huff Post Books (December 2013)