Kim Shuck
Kim Shuck embraces the fool and jester qualities of being a modern poet and artist. She is a devotee of San Francisco, whose hills she wanders nearly always on foot. Her maternal grandparents met at the Polish Hall on Shotwell and she spent many hours with her mother and grandmother wandering the Mission St. Miracle Mile, taking books out of the Mission Branch library and watching aquarium fish on the ground floor of what used to be Hale's. She firmly believes in carrying a bubble wand, keys, pen and notebook and cats cradle string at all times. Shuck is widely published in journals, anthologies and a couple of solo books. She enjoys volunteering in SFUSD elementary school classrooms to share her loves of origami, poetry and basket making... in other words, math of various kinds. In 2019 Shuck was awarded an inaugural National Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets, and a PEN Oakland Censorship Award. Source
Giveaway
In gratitude for all of it—theft, small pox, relocation and denial. Wa-do
We need to be stubborn for this work
Stubborn and loving.
The most difficult of lessons for me
Sometimes.
Generous gifts
Are often given
By those who didn’t intend to give anything at all.
I call the slave master
Who lost track of my ancestor
A blanket for you
In gratitude.
I call the soldier
With a tired arm
Who didn’t cut deeply enough
Into my great great grandfather’s chest to kill clean.
I return your axehead
Cleaned and sharpened
May you wield it against others with equal skill.
Will the boarding school officer come up?
The one who didn’t take my Gram
Because of her crippled leg.
No use as a servant-such a shame with that face…
Finally the shopkeeper’s wife.
Who traded spoiled cans of fruit
For baskets that took a year each to make.
Thank you, Faith, for not poisoning
Quite all
Of my
Family.
Blankets for each of you,
And let no one say
That I am not
Grateful for your care.
Published:
2011
Length:
Regular
Literary Movements:
Contemporary
Anthology Years:
2023
Themes:
Intersectionality & Culture
Memory & The Past
Racial Injustice
Strength & Resilience
Literary Devices:
Apostrophe
an exclamatory passage in a speech or poem addressed to a person (typically one who is dead or absent) or thing (typically one that is personified)
Epigraph
a short quotation or saying at the beginning of a book or chapter, intended to suggest its theme
Juxtaposition
the fact of two things being seen or placed close together with contrasting effect