Poetry of the People featuring Jessy Hylton

This week's Poet of the People is Jessy Hylton. Jessy Hylton is a poet in every sense of the word, She comes to us with a wealth of experience and knowledge. She has her PhD in Creative Writing from LSU and prior to following her heart to South Carolina she was the MFA Director of Creative Writing at the University of Arkansas at Monticello and founding editor of Fermata Publishing. She hosts the Funky Fish Camp Reading Series in Georgetown, SC, is on the faculty at Coastal Carolina and is a vital and active member of the poetry community of South Carolina. She is an under-utilized literary force in South Carolina and I am blessed to know her..

Bio: Jessica K. Hylton holds a Ph.D. in creative writing from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and works at Coastal Carolina University. Her books include Gag Order, The Great Scissor Hunt, and the forthcoming collection Scatter; or, James Joyce Always Makes Me Think of Boobs.  She is the program director for the Poetry Society of South Carolina and runs the Funky Fish Camp Reading Series at Between the Antlers in Georgetown.


I want to love you like a semi-colon loves

Not the unpc version Vonnegut espoused 

or the social movement I agree with in sentiment 

but not in punctuation 

I want to love you linguistically 

admiring the independence of your clause

the completeness of your phrase

and how it mirrors my own

Call it a homosyntaxity 

Two bodies the same in structure

beautiful on their own accord

but breathtaking when together 

I want to love you knowing you 

don’t need me and I don’t need you

because we function well on our own

but when we’re close, we redefine mechanics 


~~~

She uses commas combatively

Or at least that’s what I told her 

When she let me read her writing

She liked it—a staunch feminist proud

of subverting the male standard 

of academic discourse

But honestly? 

Combative wasn’t the right word

She uses commas romantically

where she refuses to separate

things that are better together 

like fish and chips, nuts and berries

even in lists where the separation 

is grammatically correct

Collocation? Noun phrases? 

The linguists I asked couldn’t tell me

what she was doing, but sometimes 

you don’t need a linguist to know 

all you want is to be on the same 

side of a comma as she is

~~~

Apis Angel

Sometimes I wonder if bees

tell their larvae stories 

about their prophet

The queen of the bees

crucified by scientists 

in the name of learning

Does a savior have 

to be self aware

when she's pinned 

to a ragged old cross

or a Smithsonian cardboard display?

Can that awareness

be constructed as life

buzzes onward 

triumphing over 

plague after plague?

Is it so far fetched 

to question an insect’s 

knowledge of the universe 

or to suspect something 

might be studying us?

~~~

Pie Soporte

I watched you leave

with a woman whose

name I doubted you knew

as I turned to my own

brunette

Each of us going through

the motions—knowing

the rhythm of our vicious

courtship would pull

us back together

before the night’s end

Like two waves crashing

against your satin sheets

intent on annihilating

the pull of gravity

In the morning 

you would leave again

for the tighter verses

of an older poet

Who phrased life

more beautifully than

she could live it

While I would look

for a liquid muse

waiting for our next

turn

~~~

Sante Sybil Sante

Lovers should come 

with warning labels

like finely crafted spirits

(1) According to the Surgeon General

Women should not lose Lucidity 

amid Clandestine promises

for risk of defective sentiment

(2) Consumption of poetry

impairs your ability to act

and may cause reality 

to become closer 

than it appears 

So I’ll fill my glass 

for you my dear

Dribbling water pure 

as Ophelia over sweet 

nothings that cloud 

the clarity of Absinthe

~~~

He proposed to me on the same nigh

he showed me the scans

filled with spider webs 

sticking to all of his internal organs

Not blessing them with words of encouragement 

but with the promise of my first real tragic ending

“Marry me and give me something to live for”

I said I’d think about it but I ended 

up with a felony—91 in a 55 

on the only road away from death

I understand him so much more now 

My brain littered with blotches 

like wilted fireworks

Flies and the dying only want a soft place 

to land always heading toward something 

desirable hoping they won’t get zapped

But I know walking corpses have limited sex appeal

as I rot before you and I will shamble away

Rather than ever asking you to stay

~~~

Instruction manual

Do you ever wonder 

if an instruction manual feels 

sad as you turn its last page?

I promise I’m not high, or at least not

that high but it is legal

when you’re dying

I guess it’s supposed to make 

you forget you’re on your last 

page but really all it makes 

you think about is how you

and the instruction manual

should have been novels

~~~

Things she doesn’t like

Ballpoint pens

Wet socks

Overly groomed flower arrangements 

Water she can’t see through—unless it’s the ocean

Patriarchal ideals

Admitting favorites

Drinking wine out of plastic cups

Making all the decisions 

Any decision that’s different than the one she would make

Left lane drivers 

Driving in general

Not telling you how to drive from the passenger seat

Nicknames

Aluminum in deodorant

T shirts with logos

Jeans without belts 

Chewing gum

Onions

Most old white men 

Cold French fries 

Feeling out of control 

Indicas

Cheap beer

At this point, I lean back 

clicking the ballpoint pen

I bought her and she gave back 

to me as I reread the list

and fall in love with her all over 

again because the world is better

when it spins the way she wants 

But I know I still have to add 

two more letters to make

the list complete, done, finished 

I pick up the rejected gift

and add the two letters she never wanted

“Me”