"Harry and Bess" an original poem by thepoetmiranda

An original poem by thepoetmiranda

Intro

I’m currently working on two poetry book manuscripts, both of which I hope to self-publish this year, if I can get the money together (paid subscribers and donations at ko-fi.com/thepoetmiranda help). If any publishers stop by to read some of work and want to give me a book deal instead, that would be cool. The two manuscripts are tentatively titled:

1. The Escape Act
2. Car Guy Girl

Both manuscripts have some older poems already lined up, and I’ve been working on new poems that fit into one or the other. Since I started this blog in January, I’ve shared with you both old and new poems from each manuscript. My archive of original poems is sorted, if you’d like to see how the concepts are coming together:

Miranda's Original Poems

Today, I’m sharing with you an older poem from The Escape Act. I started this manuscript during grad school (2013-2016) not long after my partner confirmed something with genealogical research that I had suspected—I’m related to Harry Houdini. I dove into more research about Houdini, his life, his careers, his books, his public squabbles with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, vaudeville, magic, escape acts, etc.

A lot of the tropes and imagery of performance connected with me. In fact, they connected so deeply that exploring metaphors of masquerades and showmanship and grandiosity and chains and jail cells and escapes—escapes—helped me sort out the gender dysphoria I had struggled with all my life. A lot of my newer poems in this manuscript directly talk about my transgender self, but she also shows up in unexpected places in the older poems.

This poem, “Harry and Bess,” was inspired by the following 1913 photograph of Harry and Bess Houdini together.

The poem text is below, followed, as always, by my video reading.

💜Miranda📚

Harry and Bess

after a 1913 photograph of Harry and Bess Houdini

His fingertips trace the strand
through the eyelets of her corset,
crossing over and over again
like her Catholic mother did when

she said she wanted to marry
a Jew. Once, they were threadbare
wanderers, unraveling; now, he binds
her in the finest lace. They still roam,

unsure they possess the capability
to settle, unsure they would settle,
if they could. In the tight knot behind
her back, they live: cinched, taut,

two people entwined together,
following the curvature of bones.

My Reading

https://youtube.com/shorts/eXsiFHBA7gs?feature=share

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