{"id":143778,"date":"2020-03-25T19:25:11","date_gmt":"2020-03-25T23:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=143778"},"modified":"2020-03-25T19:25:11","modified_gmt":"2020-03-25T23:25:11","slug":"2020-whiting-awards-jake-skeets-poetry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/03\/25\/2020-whiting-awards-jake-skeets-poetry\/","title":{"rendered":"Jake Skeets, Poetry"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Jake Skeets. Photo: Quanah Yazzie.<\/p><\/div>\n

Jake Skeets is Black Streak Wood, born for Water\u2019s Edge. He is Din\u00e9 from Vanderwagen, New Mexico. He is the author of Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful<\/em> of Flowers<\/em> (Milkweed Editions, 2019), a National Poetry Series\u2013winning collection of poems. He holds an M.F.A. in poetry from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Skeets is a winner of the 2018 Discovery\/Boston Review Poetry Contest and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Skeets edits an online publication called Cloudthroat<\/em> and organizes a poetry salon and reading series called Pollentongue, based in the Southwest. He is a member of Saad Bee H\u00f3zh\u01eb\u0301: A Din\u00e9 Writers\u2019 Collective and currently teaches at Din\u00e9 College in Tsaile, Arizona.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

\u201cVirginity\u201d<\/p>\n

Clouds in his throat,
\nsix months\u2019 worth.<\/p>\n

He bodies into me
\nhalf cosmos, half coyote. <\/p>\n

We become night
\non Bread Springs<\/p>\n

road. Shirts off,
\njeans halfway<\/p>\n

down, parked
\nby an abandoned<\/p>\n

trailer. \u201cNo one
\nlives here,\u201d<\/p>\n

he whispers.
\nWe become porch<\/p>\n

light curtained
\nby moth wings,<\/p>\n

powdered into ash.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

\u201cGlory\u201d<\/p>\n

Native American male. Early twenties. About 6’2″, 190 pounds.
\nHas the evening for a face.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

Possible public intoxication. Native American female. No ID. She reported
\nbeing raped.
\nWhite shirt. No pants. Her legs swallowed the hotel.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

Shots fired. Shots fired. Group of males scattered. Native American possibly.
\nOne has a skull tattoo. Some ran east on Boardman. The skull is still here.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

Medic unit requested. Sagebrush Bar.
\nUnidentified male not responsive. Possible hit-and-run.
\nWitnesses described it as a man being spit out from the mouth of a 4×4.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

Yellow car heading north on Highway 666. Possible DWI. The car is kissing
\nthe median like a wasp against a window.
\nIts wings torn to pieces.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

I just saw a young boy get hit by a train. I don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t
\nknow. He ran onto the tracks and the train hit him. It hit him.
\nHe\u2019s still moving. ……..<\/span>He\u2019s young. Maybe twenty. We\u2019re on the Westside
\nby Walmart. Should I help him? He\u2019s moving, he\u2019s moving.
\nThe train hit him. There\u2019s blood all over him.
\nThe train ate through him like a river eats through the arroyo. The train,
\n.<\/span>it sounds like a river.<\/p>\n

……………………………….<\/span>Like a river, a river goddamnit,
\n………………………………………….<\/span>a river, a river,
\n………………………………………….<\/span>ariverariverariverariverariverariverariver<\/p>\n

a river<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

This is Officer Carson. Medic requested. Man down. Native male. Late twenties, early thirties. Stab wounds to the stomach. Pulse faint. Blood on the snow. He is being erased from the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Read two poems by Jake Skeets, winner of a 2020 Whiting Award for poetry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1934,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62796],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-whiting-awards-2020"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhiting Awards 2020: Jake Skeets, Poetry<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Read two poems by Jake Skeets, winner of a 2020 Whiting Award for poetry.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/03\/25\/2020-whiting-awards-jake-skeets-poetry\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta 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