Poem of the Week | August 21, 2017

Alison Rollins: “Character Building”
Looking for the 2017 Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize submissions page? Please click here.
Alison C. Rollins, born and raised in St. Louis, currently works as the Librarian for Nerinx Hall. She is the second prizewinner of the 2016 James H. Nash Poetry contest and a finalist for the 2016 Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Meridian, The Offing, Poetry, The Poetry Review, River Styx, Solstice, TriQuarterly, Tupelo Quarterly, Vinyl, and elsewhere. A Cave Canem and Callaloo Fellow, she is also a 2016 recipient of the Poetry Foundation’s Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship. Learn more at her website.
Character Building
Author’s Note:
I wrote this poem after a neighborhood walk with my dog, during which he had wandered away from me to sniff the carcass of a decomposing bird. With the dog and I staring at the bird in the grass, I wondered or rather tried to understand how the baby bird had died. I was curious about my need to give the dead bird meaning. This poem grapples with this desire for an underlying truth, even if the truth is constructed in a self-serving/self-soothing fashion. Borrowing the line, “Say that the River turns, and turn the River” from Gwendolyn Brooks’ “The Sermon on the Warpland,” this poem interrogates a faith in language to change or manipulate the course of events in relationship to our understanding of the life cycle. The poem explores the way the power of language itself functions as a historical belief system or architecture of identity. Ultimately, it begs the questions: What does it mean to build character or grow into a life? How much control does one have regarding their future? What losses can we withstand?
SEE THE ISSUE
SUGGESTED CONTENT

Poem of the Week
Jun 20 2022
“Black Hole in the Long Island Sound” by Peter LaBerge
This week’s Poem of the Week is “Black Hole in the Long Island Sound” by Peter LaBerge. Peter LaBerge is the author of the chapbooks Makeshift Cathedral (YesYes Books) and… read more

Poem of the Week
Jun 13 2022
“Nude #2” by Mag Gabbert
This week’s Poem of the Week is “Nude #2” by Mag Gabbert. Mag Gabbert is the author of the forthcoming collection SEX DEPRESSION ANIMALS (Mad Creek Books, 2023), winner of… read more

Poem of the Week
Jun 06 2022
“Death-Spot” by Nazifa Islam
This week’s Poem of the Week is “Death-Spot” by Nazifa Islam. Nazifa Islam is the author of the poetry collections Searching for a Pulse (Whitepoint Press, 2013) and Forlorn Light:… read more