I was first introduced to Cathryn Cofell’s poetry shortly after joining the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets in 2009. She and Karla Huston had organized the first conference I attended. The featured poet was Denise Duhamel. What an introduction to the WFOP!
Among her many accomplishments, Cofell was instrumental in establishing the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission and served as its first chairperson.
Her 2019 collection, Stick Figure with Skirt, was the winner of the Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award. I’ve copied the title poem below with her permission. Buy the book!
Cathryn has an unmistakable recitation style. You can read one of her poems over and over, but once you’ve heard her recite it, you’ll never read it in a different way again. You’ll always hear her voice as you read.
An example is below. Read her poem “Tiny Little Crushes”, then listen to her recitation from the 2010 CD, Lip, accompanied by Bruce Dethelefsen and Bill Orth (aka Obvious Dog). Even though the sound quality on the YouTube site is not the best, you’ll see what I mean.
TINY LITTLE CRUSHES
When I was twelve, it was Leif Garrett. How he made me sing,
taught me to dance real tight up against his thrusting head
of blonde hair (that was some hair), up there on my closet door,
his wet lips perfect height to pucker up and kiss my Bonne Bell
cherry-vanilla lips, and kiss, as if he were more than just a life-
sized poster I could never put my arms around.
When I was sixteen, it was the captain of the swim team. I kept time
at the boys’ meets just to watch him wet himself down with his
cupped hands, to bend into that starting block in his taut green Speedo,
to pop up at the gun and spread open into that water like a girl’s waiting
arms, to be the first face he saw when he surfaced. One time he sat
next to me, told me shaving his body would shave a second off his time,
gave me his bare leg and told me to feel it (and boy, did I feel it).
Then he dove in, climbed out, got a wrestling cheerleader pregnant.
In college, it was a guy nicknamed Kermit. At first I didn’t get it,
I was too busy learning how to make him squirm from across a bar,
to make the valleys in my brain line up with the volcano in his,
to let him know just how badly he wanted me, something to do
with the shift of hips and lips at the same time. I was no Bo Derek,
but let me tell you that whatever I did worked because he found out
my name, took me for a ride, introduced me to his bottom bunk.
The next day, I saw that little frog walk another girl to class.
Sometimes it’s just a husky voice on the phone. A man playing
golf. A woman who hands you a tissue on the bus. It’s not only
the man who didn’t get away-- the one who looks away while
I fold my wrinkled clothes because he has seen enough, the one
who loses my voice in a turned page because he is lost in his own
imagination, he is lost idling a tiny crush of memories all his own.
- previously published in Laurel Review and “Tiny Little Crushes” (LockOut Press)
Video version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oji8rmL7478
STICK FIGURE WITH SKIRT
Is the universal sign for the women’s restroom
unless you are in Hawaii or a cowboy bar
Stick figure with skirt is the universal symbol of fashion
aka Allure aka Kate Moss
Stick figure with skirt holding hands with other stick figures
is the universal mini-van mom
making sure we know she is loved
by her stick figure family
see?
they are all stick smiling
Stick figure with skirt is not available on stick-figure-games.com—
no zombie shooter no sniper assassin
no stick girls allowed—
even at girlgames.com the stick chicks are naked or suicidal
Stick figure in pencil skirt and heels
is the universal sign for career woman
but notice she has no mouth no eyes
no opposable thumbs on her two stick hands
Beneath that stick figure skirt is slip
beneath that slip Spanx
beneath Spanx two bare sticks
like scissors forever cutting her flesh
into smaller sticks and smaller still
until she is kindling
toothpick
the universal sign of beauty
-Previously published Switchgrass Review