Smart Girls and Poem

On Friday we learned that the SSHRC grant our daughter-in-law SP had applied for to investigate smart girls had been approved. We were delighted. SP herself is pretty smart, as are so many girls we know, young and old, and I am truly looking forward to hearing about this important research and what she finds out about smart girls.

I have no doubt that Damian Rogers, when she was in her teens, was a smart girl because she sure as hell is smart now. Smart as a whip, I’d say, quick and true. When I started to read her collection of poems, Paper Radio, I found it so good that I rationed myself – didn’t want to run through them too quickly, didn’t want to run out of more of her poems to read.

Here is one that fits today’s theme, I think:


Honour Roll Student Drunk at Pep Rally

I know what you think, and for once I don’t care.
Skipping class to pound rum and cokes at my house
puts these cheers in a whole new light: Go Blue.

Let’s get out of here. I’ll drive.

Let’s park your Corvair behind a Dumpster at Meijer’s
and spend the rest of the afternoon drinking PBR.
Roll a joint and take down that feathered roach clip
hanging from your rearview mirror.

Let me have your tongue in my mouth for a while.
And for fuck’s sake, stop talking.

I want to stay out until the night past the dashboard
is black as the cheap kohl eyeliner
I see the girls behind Sunshine Foods
melt down with their yellow lighters
before rimming their lids like rabid animals.

Come on, let’s board up the windows with our breath.

Let your fingers slide inside my panties,
your belt buckle break open easily in my hands.


If you want to read more, you can buy the book, or you can hear her read a few more of her poems here.

And if you, like SP, are a smart girl, be happy that she is going to start her study of you and girls like you.