Mom's Jar of Teeth and Other Poems
Sam L.
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Each of the poems in this collection are about a different point in time: “Pacing as a Mode of Transportation” is about the present, “Look How Tall You’ve Gotten” is about the future, and “Mom’s Jar of Teeth: an Incomplete Set” is about the past. “Pacing as a Mode of Transportation” explores avoiding progress for the sake of comfort. Ironically, it was the one that gave me the most trouble. I couldn’t seem to ground it in just one “perfect” idea. To fix this, I structured the poem around borrowed lines from multiple-choice Driver’s Ed tests (the lines you see in italics) and wrote it in a sort of instructional manner, like the narrator was giving and receiving advice. I wanted to evoke the feeling of a deer caught in headlights (thus the line “my deer”). “Look How Tall You’ve Gotten” was written in response to the prompt “letter to your future self”. For this one, I wanted to capture the feeling of a distant future self in the request for postcards. (When I think of postcards, I think of physical and emotional distance, since they aren’t as personal as a letter.) “Mom’s Jar of Teeth: an Incomplete Set” is about growing up and what you lose along the way. These “teeth” —or rather memories— aren’t so important that you can’t live without them, but sometimes you want them back for sentimentality’s sake.
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Creativity is a life force. More often than not, my writing voice is my loudest voice. I love continuous discovery that goes into making art and can’t imagine a world without it.
