GILLIAN CONOLEY on
Jean Valentine
I Dropped a Plate

I DROPPED A PLATE

I dropped a plate and broke it
it came from a set
I keep the scraped-down leak marks from the rain
on the wall from two years ago
layers of blue and tan
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The broken, the underneath,
the backwards:
On the radio, Merce said, Do it backwards,
Jump first, then run,
even if it was just with his arms, when he got old
even if some people hated it

Gillian Conoley was awarded the Shelley Memorial Award in Poetry for lifetime achievement in 2017 from the Poetry Society of America. Conoley is the author of several collections of poetry. PEACE , was named a finalist for the LA Times Book Award in 2014. Her translation of three books by Henri Michaux, brought into English for the first time, appeared with City Lights the same year and was named one of the Top Ten Poetry Books of 2014 by Publishers’ Weekly. Notes from the Passenger is forthcoming from Nightboat Books in May 2023. She is a professor at Sonoma State University.