{"id":5372,"date":"2018-05-30T18:04:24","date_gmt":"2018-05-30T18:04:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=5372"},"modified":"2018-05-30T18:10:11","modified_gmt":"2018-05-30T18:10:11","slug":"daisy-cutter-camille-dungy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=5372","title":{"rendered":"DAISY CUTTER – Camille Dungy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pause here at the flower stand-mums
\nand gladiolas, purple carnations
\n 
\ndark as my heart. We are preparing
\nfor a war, and I want to drag home
\n 
\nany distraction I can carry. Tonight
\nchildren will wake to bouquets of fire
\n 
\nthat will take their breath away. Still,
\nI think of my life. The way you hold me,
\n 
\nsometimes, you could choke me.
\nThere is no way to protect myself,
\n 
\nexcept by some brilliant defense. I want
\nthe black iris with their sabered blooms.
\n 
\nI want the flame throwers: the peonies,
\nthe sunflowers. I will cut down the beautiful ones
\n 
\nand let their nectared sweetness bleed
\ninto the careless air. This is not the world
\n 
\nI\u2019d hoped it could be. It is horrible,
\nthe way we carry on. Last night, you catalogued
\n 
\nour arsenal. You taught me that devastation
\nis a goal we will announce in a celebration
\n 
\nof shrapnel. Our bombs will shower
\nin anticipation of their marks. You said this
\n 
\nis to assure damage will be widely distributed.
\nWhat gruesome genius invents our brutal hearts?
\n 
\nWhen you touch me I am a stalk of green panic
\nand desire. Wait here while I decide which
\n 
\nof these sprigs of blossoming heartbreak I can afford
\nto bring into my home. Tonight dreams will erupt
\n 
\nin chaotic buds of flame. This is the world we have
\narranged. It is horrible, this way we carry on.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"Camille T. Dungy was born in Denver, Colorado and grew up in California. She received her B.A. from Stanford University and M.F.A. from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Dungy is the author of Smith Blue, winner of the 2010 Crab Orchard Open Book Prize, Suck on the Marrow, and What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison. Her poems and essays have been published widely in anthologies, print, and online journals. She is also the editor of several anthologies, including Black Nature: Four Centuries of African-American Nature Poetry.
\n 
\nShe is a two-time recipient of the Northern California Book Award, a Silver Medal Winner in the California Book Award, and two-time NAACP Image Award nominee. She was recognized in the Huffington Post Top 200 Advocates for American Poetry for her role as co-founder of From the Fishouse, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the oral tradition of poetry. Recently a professor in the Creative Writing Department at San Francisco State University, Dungy is now a Professor in the English Department at Colorado State University.
\n 
\nUsed with permission by Camille Dungy, originally published in DC Poets Against the War: An Anthology<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pause here at the flower stand-mums and gladiolas, purple carnations   dark as my heart. We are preparing for a war, and I want to drag home   any distraction I can carry. Tonight children will wake to bouquets of fire   that will take their breath away. Still, I think of my life. The [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5447,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[298],"class_list":["post-5372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","tag-two-daisies-by-scott-basford-wikicommons-use"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5372"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5450,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5372\/revisions\/5450"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}