The Flood
they found a t. rex
that turned black
from all the manganese
in the groundwater
someone named her
black beauty
she's been compared
to jesus on the cross
there are no black horses
around, only a grey one
who lays down a lot
every time i think
she’s dead but every time
she’s resurrected
uprooted trees dam the river
my muffin tray is overfilled
i can’t figure out
who to pray to
Julia Hartline
Julia Hartline is a Canadian writer living on Treaty 7 territory in SW Alberta, where she fly fishes and is completing her MA at Athabasca University. Her work has appeared in Pinhole Poetry.
Why this Knocked Taylor Out:
I really am painting myself into a corner as an editor but the poem starts with a t-rex and ends in prayer and that makes it perfect for Team Taylor.
This poem is constantly renegotiating the terms of devotion through the lens of overflowing. Each image is allowed its moment and then fades as a new one takes its place. At the end, the reader is left piecing each move the poem makes together and the sense of never settling is working so well.
Some craft things to think about as you read this poem: the lack of punctuation allows the disjunctive leaps in the imagery to feel less jarring. We move from the t-rex to horses to trees to worship pretty quickly but without periods everything bleeds into everything else. For me as a reader, that helps sustain me through the leaps and keep me going.
Also, no capitalization!!! Which is genius in this case because it gets everything on the same playing field. Nothing is elevated above anything else, connecting to the final lines of “i can’t figure out who to pray to.” Even though there are figures in this poem a reader could be reverential toward, the speaker is more just wandering, curious to see what comes next.
Interview:
Why did you choose Team Taylor for this poem?
I read Elena Zhang's incredible (!) poem "SUE the T. rex meets the new Spinosaurus fossil at the Field Museum" and really connected with Taylor's comments.
This poem is constantly turning away from its previous image and into a new one, how does this align with your normal poetic writing?
I love turns. I'm really interested in the associations that language generates, especially when they might otherwise be considered non-sequiturs or plain weird.
Talk to me about the lack of capitalization and the lack of punctuation. Why does the poem need that formal choice?
There's a sense of indeterminacy that I think comes with a lack of capitalization and punctuation. Everything also had to be put on a flat plane. I feel like black beauty can be held and examined, like she's less sacred and more open to shifts in meaning or value than Black Beauty.