The Keys to the Jail (American Poets Continuum)

By: Keetje Kuipers

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Synopsis: The Keys to the Jail asks the question of who is to blame for all we’ve lost, calling us to reexamine the harsh words of failed love, the aging of a once-beautiful body, even our own voracious desires. Keetje Kuipers is a poet of daring leaps and unflinching observations, whose richly textured lyrics travel from Montana’s great wildernesses to the ocean-fogged streets of San Francisco as they search out the heart that’s lost its way.Dolores ParkIn the flattening California dusk,women gather under palms with their bagsof bottles and cans. The grass is featheredwith the trash of the day, paper napkinsblowing across the legs of those who stilldrown on a patchwork of blankets. Shirtlessin the phosphorescent gloom of streetlamps,they lie suspended. This is my one goodlife-watching the exchange of embraces,counting the faces assembled outsidethe ice-cream shop, sweet tinge of urine bythe bridge above the tracks, broken bike lockof the gay couple’s hands, desperate clappingof dark pigeons-who will take it from me?A former Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry, Keetje Kuipers's debut collection, Beautiful in the Mouth, won the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize. She has been the Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writing Resident, and is currently an assistant professor at Auburn University.