Johanna Shapiro, PhD
When I was little I thought
women were flat-chested
like men
only they had long purple
squiggles across their chests
I thought
this way because cancer
filched both my mother’s breasts
when I
was born
Johanna Shapiro, PhD
When I was little I thought
women were flat-chested
like men
only they had long purple
squiggles across their chests
I thought
this way because cancer
filched both my mother’s breasts
when I
was born
Johanna Shapiro, PhD
When he was three, our son
always beat me when we played
When he was five, he got mad that
he was white
and didn’t have a name
like Kareem or Magic,
a name that could soar
and slam dunk
Johanna Shapiro, PhD
It would make an interesting calculation for some graduate student in English literature to figure out, since the introduction of the written word, how many poems have been written about death. Even without a definitive answer to this question, it is obvious that poetry and death have a long history together. Perhaps it is because, when nothing else is left us, when we have run out of remedies and medicines and interventions, we still have words. They offer only an imperfect resistance to the inevitability of our own annihilation, but since they are all we have, we wield them as best we may.
Johanna Shapiro, PhD
Some people are fortunate enough to know, by the time they are sixteen (or sometimes six), what it is they want to do with the rest of their lives. Their career path is set – mathematician, teacher, physician – and a direct line appears to exist between the point of aspiration and the point of achievement. For others, a process that has been described as an organic unfolding occurs – one’s abilities and inclinations lead to certain work, which in turn provides the foundation for other, related work, and in this fashion an interesting, although not always predictable, career is built. Regardless of the type of career one has evolved – whether “directed” or “organic” – it is likely that within that career there may be various shifts of emphases as new interests and challenges develop, and other aspects of work become excessively familiar and well-worn.