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Treasure Shields Redmond

Website
Years: 2000, 2001, and 2002

Biography

A Mississippi native, Treasure Shields Redmond is a St. Louis-based poet, performer and educator. She has published poetry in such notable anthologies as Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam, Breaking Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cane Canem’s First Decade and in journals that include Sou'wester and  African American Review. She has received a fellowship to the Fine Arts Works Center, and her poem, "around the time of medgar" was nominated for a 2011 Pushcart Prize.

Treasure is a Cave Canem fellow and has received an MFA from the University of Memphis. Presently, she divides her time between being an assistant professor of English at Southwestern Illinois College and doctoral studies at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

 

Poem

for my daughter

 

i must apologize beforehand:

settle yourself with the fact                       

you will never really know me

 

women have some beast of ourselves

that is permanently captive

 

our rage is sent away

like a door to door salesman

 

or transferred

like a subscription

 

we push it down for our daughters’ sakes

but they just find it when we die

 

right now

you lick your whole hand

you rip off your diaper

and bring it to your nose

 

sweet oatmeal,

applesauce, raisins, milk

hot fried tomatoes

all taste better from the floor

 

you sample hugging your brother

then you slap him

 

both make you laugh

 

i tell myself these things will

not be taken from you