Joshua Young & Alexis Pope
from I Am Heavy w/ Feeling
I keep telling
my students
to interject
in the poem
but I’m paraphrasing
what another
poet told me
who is this
I’m meeting
shake that limp hand
& everyone asks
how are your classes going
how do you say
amazing because
I am amazing at teaching
without sounding
like a total asshole
thing is I believe it
my evaluations prove it
except the one that says
don’t hire grad students
from when I wasn’t
a grad student
I should probably
start dressing better
Joshua Young is the author of THE HOLY GHOST PEOPLE (2014) and Psalms for the Wreckage (forthcoming 2017), both from Plays Inverse Press, as well as three other collections and a split-chapbook, Sedro-Woolley Days: A Damien Jurado Mixtape, alongside Talin Tahajian. His work has appeared in Gulf Coast, Puerto del Sol, Salt Hill, Fugue, cream city review, Public Pool, and Court Green, among others. He is Editor-in-Chief for The Lettered Streets Press and works at the University of Chicago. He lives in the Albany Park neighborhood with two humans.
Alexis Pope is the author of Soft Threat (2014), as well as three chapbooks. Poetry and nonfiction work has appeared in Denver Quarterly, cream city review, Hobart, Poor Claudia, Prelude, The Volta, and West Branch, among others. Pope lives in Chicago with her daughter.
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