AUTHOR'S NOTE:

When I wrote this poem, I was frustrated with my writing, with my own language. In addition, I was thinking about the limitations of poetry, and of the ways we interpret meaning from sounds we don’t fully understand. This poem was also loosely influenced by my childhood upbringing in a Pentecostal church in southeastern Tennessee, but if I were to try to explain why or how, it wouldn’t make any sense. The good news is I’m less frustrated now.

BIO:

Emily A. Benton’s poems appear in Kestrel, OCHO, storySouth, and elsewhere. She is a second-year student in the MFA Writing program at UNC Greensboro, where she also edits poetry for The Greensboro Review.