November 2017
This year’s Fascist events in Charlottesville, Virginia, hit me hard. I was in the first coed class at the University of Virginia and like to think my perseverance helped open minds in the city and school. Now UVa has over 50% female enrollment. I have good friends living there and go back to visit every few years. My intention was to stay in Charlottesville forever, but the job market said otherwise. Now I’ve lived in Kansas City, Missouri, more than half my life. My latest book is Waking on the Moon (Kelsay Books, 2017). Please visit me at alariepoet.com.
Me at age 18
Summer 1970, The University of Virginia
Opens to Women in the Fall
Mama calls me a pioneer. I call
me a student - tagging along
after my older brother like always,
ignoring his taunts. You can’t
come here. Somehow I knew
I would.
At thirteen, I fell in love
with Thomas Jefferson’s Rotunda
and vistas of the Blue Ridge.
I’m not trying to make history,
just taking my place in it.
Brave? No, timid and half blind.
Every stranger and new school
scares me. That’s life.
I don’t know I’ll need extra
courage. That will come later.
Once I Was Juliet
I was skeptical of those movie
scenes where the librarian slips
off her glasses and the leading man
realizes she’s gorgeous. Yet I went
from invisible to pursued in just that way.
Goodbye, glasses. Hello, men. Lots
of men – about thirty-five for each
first coed at my college.
Suddenly I reminded them of Zeffirelli’s
Juliet. A stranger hummed “A Time for Us”
to me in the cafeteria. A nice romantic
interlude among the catcalls, curses,
and variations on we don’t want
you here.
Now when I hear that theme,
I’m eighteen again, looking like Juliet.
Feeling like Joan of Arc.
“Summer 1970” was first published in The Southern Women’s Review (February 2015).
“Once I Was Juliet” was first published by Silver Birch Press (November 2015).
© 2017 Alarie Tennille
“Once I Was Juliet” was first published by Silver Birch Press (November 2015).
© 2017 Alarie Tennille
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