Emily Okamoto-Green: August 2020 Poet of the Month
Photo: Joanna C. Valente
XV. THE DEVIL
I’ll tell you the truth is I jumped in front of that police cruiser on purpose perhaps I only meant to ask for directions today’s doctor is over an hour late but some of the girls have sworn he’s pretty so who’s really counting? I’m reading Martha Stewart’s Living in a room with no windows just desperate for advice on curtain hanging and I’m sorry— I can’t help myself
I’ll tell any visitors they took every sharp I had but my daddy’s wit and you see my daddy used to have a laugh like mine— a little bitter but warm enough to keep through winter and his granddaddy was the proud son of a traveling preacher man but my daddy’s daddy cultivated a laugh so cold his wife hid all the knives and grandmomma says
I’m supposed to be counting my blessings because I’m young and single and only ever been abused by myself and I can’t tell if that’s supposed to be funny the poor nurse couldn’t find a vein again this morning my arm thin brimstone he turns over in his hands and they can’t expect to make me bleed any more than I could myself but don’t worry I’m in on the joke
the joke goes how many family members had to off themselves before the doctors call it a “blood born” illness?
Emily Okamoto-Green is a current MFA Candidate in Poetry at George Mason University, where she received her undergraduate degree in English.
Her love of language has been a part of her story since she was born in Japan in 1996 to a Japanese mother and American father. Balancing these two cultures and family history features in much of her work, but her interest in her family history became more necessary as she began struggling with mental illness. After a suicide attempt, she agrees to treatment in a psychiatric ward and it's only then that she learns there is a history in her family of depression, anxiety, self-medication, and suicide. Through engaging with the tarot and the conversational mode, she enters a larger poetic discussion about family, mental illness, hope and hopelessness, and the human desire to know what's coming next.
She currently works as Program Assistant for The Alan Cheuse International Writers Center, and Editorial Assistant for Poetry Daily. Her accolades include winner of the 2015 Virginia Downs Poetry Award, winner of the 2017 Joseph Lohman III Poetry Prize, and the inaugural winner of the Berkey Essay Contest.
