McKenzie Michaels: Introduction to the Poems of Kaitlyn Sephton

Kaitlyn’s disposition upon encountering the varying situations of the everyday produces a type of poetry that reveals the base and visceral aspects of life. The imagery used in Kaitlyn’s poem, “Email,” suggests the “space. between.” two people, spanned by modern day devices; yet, there is a sort of isolation which prevails, such that any person feels when in the absence of another. Her poem muses between the points of isolation and animal communion, oscillating between the, “Ocean, text messages, nail clippings, orgasms.” It reveals the exacting act of living.

Kaitlyn’s ekphrasis poem, “Insulation Astrology,” seems to “unhinge” the makings of the artwork to which it refers, baring gritted teeth to the things that are, “sliced and stabbed for hours”. Again, Kaitlyn allows for fluctuation in her poem, alternating between raw feeling, persistence, and the end satisfaction of such. Her symbolism evokes the visceral nature of life; blunt words and images seem to jar us into the harshness of acts which are “sharp to the touch, hot with charred edges” and cannot help but be felt down at the base of one’s being. Kaitlyn’s poetry reveals the brute stringencies of life, all mixed with an air of inexorable beauty.


Email

I can crawl across time and space into you.
Ocean, text messages, nail clippings, orgasms.
An idle mouse, a black screen.
Fingers find plastic squares. Cold. Neat.
Sometimes.
Butterflies inside from words that appear when I. Click.
It occurred to me.
Not to mention the mess of splattered blood and organs.
I think the Ancient Greeks were on to something.
Space. Between.
Build-up of something today. Love? Frustration?
Then I looked at the 40 Watt light bulb.
And. Sneezed.

--Kaitlyn Sephton


Insulation Astrology

(after Liz Adamczykan’s sculpture “Autobiography”)

Tight-rope walk your autobiography
three stories high, wire bones poking,
sliced and stabbed for hours,
set to gather dust and envy
while we tilt our heads, you move on.

Sharp sun rises, a dainty umbrella above pina colada pin-
wheel rays that pierce the tropical day pink
and raw, like the inside of a cheek
or fiberglass in the walls of an attic whose
persistent spines sting fingertips.

Capricorn, an Earth sign but lover of sky,
sure-footed, stubborn, bitten heart
unhinged against the music note—
Goats like to nibble all
over, climbing into a moon hammock to wane, wax.

Bikini-clad girl could dive into the foam
swimming pool, edgier than a flamingo lawn ornament,
sharp to the touch, hot with charred edges—
something hard to blow-dry
then satisfyingly splinter against a wall.

--Kaitlyn Sephton