Tag Archives: Emily Hargitai

by | November 30, 2018 · 11:27 am

Emily Hargitai

The Professor

I brought the professor a poem.

It was naked and covered in vomit.

I said, “Sorry, professor. I wrote it with food poisoning.”

He said, “Bile bleaches words. The wino cries

expired milk. Please put your clothes back on

and read the damn thing.”

I said, “Sorry. I wrote about childhood love

in the woods. And a ferret named Waffle.”

He said, “No you didn’t. You stuffed a dead rat

and some leaves in a squeezable bottle.”

I said, “Sorry,” and hammered my hand

to the desk with a pen. It really hurt.

He said, “Here, have a snack,” and passed me a peach.

Then he mopped up my blood with his shirt.

Emily Hargitai is a senior Creative Writing student at SUNY Purchase and a recipient of the 2018 Ginny Wray Prize in Poetry. She likes writing poems about writing poems and currently has six gray hairs.

Comments Off on Emily Hargitai

Filed under Poetry

Tagged as

by | · 11:22 am

Emily Hargitai

Poem Without Drugs

I don’t know how to write poems without drugs,

so I ask my dog to write them for me.

Usually he complies, but today he just

huffs and says, “I don’t write poems without turkey.”

So I go to my father. I say, “Dad, won’t

you help me?” He says, “Last time I did that

we both got a C, and besides, I don’t

write poems without black tea.” So I collapse

to the floor, and I beg and I pray

for God to write me a sonnet. “Just this

once let me borrow some words,” I say,

“I’ll cite you as a source, okay? I promise,

in the name of Christ, your ever-loving son.”

But by the time He answers, the poem is done.

Emily Hargitai is a senior Creative Writing student at SUNY Purchase and a recipient of the 2018 Ginny Wray Prize in Poetry. She likes writing poems about writing poems and currently has six gray hairs.

Comments Off on Emily Hargitai

Filed under Poetry

Tagged as