About Shannon Borg
Shannon Borg holds a doctorate in poetry from the University of Houston and an MFA from the University of Washington. Her first book of poems, "Corset," was published by Cherry Grove Collections in 2006. She is a member of the Ruby Group, a group of local poets promoting spontaneity, collaboration, and open exchange. She is the lifestyle editor at Seattle magazine, overseeing the food, wine, home design and entertaining sections. A native of Spokane, she spent years living around the country, with the goal of returning to Seattle, where she enjoys the clouds, the wine, and the water.
Nominated by The Ruby Group
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The Ruby Group is a consortium of five nationally-recognized Seattle poets modeling spontaneity, collaboration, and the open exchange of ideas. Members gather once a month with notebooks and writing prompts in hand. Using these prompts to guide them, they compose new work "on the spot," sharing their first drafts with fellow members. Criticism is not allowed. Instead, members assist each other in pinpointing "hotspots": phrases or lines worth revisiting. Plans are in the works for a "how to" manual celebrating the initial impulse to create and share new work without the disruptions of self-editing and critique.
BITTER LAKE
by Shannon Borg
I want to write a poem called Bitter Lake
and in it call to all the freaked-out drivers
alongside me-you of the 20 in a 40,
you of the full ashtray. Sunrise, and we eye each other
down Aurora, past Tuesday morning whores
ambling by Home Depot, stopping for smokes.
My city sees me as a shadow
through my truck's dusty window. How
does your city see you? My brother
keeps extravagant lists on the shore
where his condo drywall shudders the dust
of passing buses and why
would someone write scraps upon scraps,
morning upon morning? Museums he'll visit,
and in each museum, each painting he'll see.
I'm driving, trying to write the city and you are calling
someone. At reds, we have a free right. Do you feel
a little jolt of love from the dragon in the lake?
I'm pushing my foot into you. Every driver here's got
a little pocketful of the evening we hope we can keep.
But this grimy morning, you and I are punching
our radios, voice calling to voice. As I wonder this of me,
perhaps you wonder this of you. What stroke of my pencil would
make the stoplight, everything, change? My brother checks off
masterpiece by masterpiece and I try to make
a verse that will chauffeur you around the shore,
to where the city's mirrored in my eye's lake, and sky-
scrapers want me to see them there, full of looking.
Are you calling to me?
I'm all arrows. All yellow lines, dashed.
* First appeared in Cranky Literary Journal.