Laurel Ann Bogen

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Laurel Ann Bogen is the author of 11 books of poetry and short fiction, including Washing a Language, The Last Girl in the Land of the Butterflies, Do Iguanas Dance, and Rag Tag We Kiss. Her latest book, Psychosis in the Produce Department: New and Selected Poems 1975-2015, is published by Red Hen Press. Some of the poems include QR codes that link to audio files of select poems. For more information, contact Red Hen Press.

From 1996 until 2002, she was literary curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where she coordinated the Writers in Focus poetry series and co-authored a grant sponsored by Poets & Writers, linking the museum’s education department with Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center to create a writers-in-residence program. She has been an instructor of poetry and performance for the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program since 1990 and received the Outstanding Instructor of the Year in Creative Writing in 2008. Selected “Best Female Poet/Performer” by the L.A. Weekly in their Best of L.A. issue, she is well-known for her lively readings and is a founding member of the acclaimed poetry performance troupe, Nearly Fatal Women.

The Power Lines Are Down

Current spilling into current

I am cross-wired

aborted energy

mad with voltage

I flash neon signals

 

Love me

you

 

Fool

I spill all crazy

the fusion

of teashops and suicides

coming and going

without shieldings

 

Meltdown

meltdown

whalebone and garter

I will not be confined

by steel casings

or wedding rings

my name is preceded

by a warning --

the power lines are down

love me

Published:

2015

Length:

Regular

Literary Movements:

Contemporary

Anthology Years:

2023

Themes:

Love & Relationships

Literary Devices:

Antithesis

a person or thing that is the direct opposite of someone or something else

Juxtaposition

the fact of two things being seen or placed close together with contrasting effect

Metaphor

a comparison between two unrelated things through a shared characteristic

Repetition

a recurrence of the same word or phrase two or more times