How to Leave a Farmhouse
by Beth McDermott
How to Leave a Farmhouse engages the landscape, flora, and the manmade, to weave a multi-part narrative of place. Structures are left behind to become a part of the historical and visual character of this land—these poems draw from documents and paintings, then imagine something deeper, crafting something that’s a little bit ekphrasis, a little bit record, and something that’s almost the ghost story of a farmhouse. “What’s intact, you’ve learned, / is the upside of ruinous. What’s ruinous is documented / before it disappears. What disappears—this is what it means / to go out with guns blazing as someone else is taking / the bull by the horns…” (Porkbelly Press, 2015)
32 pages
inkjet cover
open edition
Additional Info
AN EXCERPT FROM “THE MUSHROOM FARMER”
A new housing development threatens to budge [her] another time, for the last time.
-Goodness Greeness “Farm Spotlight”
I read about her digging
her heels in
soil that tended to
ball up
on the plow. The feature
story is her chance
to self-promote,
even though nothing
will save her
from eminent
domain, including
her revulsion
for starter spawn.
Yet her perspective is so
specialized—
the public can’t
translate it.
Who cares
that she uses
manure, which stems
from maneuver?
Here she is
among the fruiting
bodies, shining
her lamp over racks
of shitake.
Their spores require
such sterility—
a room like a cave
with the ground
swept clean.
ABOUT THE THE POET
Beth McDermott has received first place in the Regional Mississippi Valley Poetry Contest and an Honorable Mention for the Associated Writing Programs’ Intro Award in Poetry. Her poems have recently appeared in journals such as DIAGRAM, Harpur Palate, Terrain.org, and Jet Fuel Review. She holds degrees from Hope College, Purdue University, and the University of Illinois at Chicago, and is currently Visiting Professor of English at the University of St. Francis in Joliet, IL.
ABOUT THE COVER ARTIST
Nicci splits her time between exploring, telling tales, and painting girls with inky tattoos. She lives in Cincinnati, Ohio with a pack of roomies & rescue animals specializing in troublemaking and joy. IG: @wickedlittleheart.