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Shyeanne Powers
Originally published in The Evergreen Review Issue 124 in September, 2010.
Shyeanne Powers
(Sometimes known as Shye Has Powers)
Bio in her own words:
Most of my friends call me Shye. My middle name is not Has, it’s Rose. I am in the Lit-rock punk band SECRET SECRETARIES with two of my best friends. Which is the best way to make music. I grew up in Washington. I currently live in San Francisco where I study Philosophy at the University of San Francisco. I am 20 years old.
Soundbyte Interview:
my writing is... simple.
I do what i do because i have to. if not, all the things i'm observing and feeling everyday will just keep piling and piling inside my head and my head with explode. every poem is the stacking and sorting of all the shit up there.
influences? my friends who are also amazing poets. influences, hmm... the city of san francisco.
well emily dickinson had no trouble writing without friends. but i am definitely not emily dickinson.
i don't like slam poetry. i like a lot of slam poets. Take sam sax, for instance, he is amazing.
we fold books and hand them out because...because.... we must. for our own sake and for the sake of adding what we think is true to the world. regardless of how many people actually see it, we know it's out there. and that is enough. self-efficacy is easily achieved when you make art. especially if you make art that your friends and community digs.
Interviewed by EVAN KARP
POEM:
Repentance.
If everything is in its right place
Why do we retreat
to those
short infinitesimal
moments
of solitude, bow our heads and wish upon
fingertips?
If everything is its right place
Why do we weep?
Shrouded hearts pressed
in the corner
or hidden under bed sheets vertebrae
breaking.
Then realigning again. As our bodies quake under
absence.
If everything is in its right place why are we searching?
For: moments
(that don’t exist)
And never will.
Calibrating our lives comparatively.
Chemicals obscure senses.
Impressions breathe dust.
