Elisabeth Blair is a poet and editor. Her publications include poetry memoir because God loves the wasp (Unsolicited Press 2022), two chapbooks, and poems in 35+ journals. In 2022 she received a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts to complete her second book, a poetry novel.

A memoir in verse, because God loves the wasp documents two and a half years Elisabeth spent living in two abusive facilities for “troubled teens” during the late 1990s. The wilderness camp and emotional growth boarding school were modeled on the teachings and tenets of Synanon, a mid-20th-century cult.

Ahead of her participation in the next reading in March, she has shared one of the poems from the book to include here.

*

Fear can be simple 

(“do not kill me, oh man with a gun”)

or can have subtleties,

involve hope

and measuring.

*

Hope: 

to avoid, prolong, shorten, change, maintain—

whatever it is you need to do, hope can take you

through the steps more efficiently than despair.

*

Measuring:

the intricate moods of Authority.

Miscalculation can result in deaths.

Not from guns—

*

[I am not ungrateful

I am not ungrateful]

—but other ones:

the three-month death your friend lived through

without eye contact or a friendly word exchanged

with a single soul

even while sitting amongst you all.

*

You were complicit 

in this act of erasure;

you too ignored her.

*

She ceased to be, except 

in the corner of the dining room

at dinner, sitting on her own

along the wall, not allowed

to look, speak, laugh, draw, or smile.

*

Hers a death you couldn’t bear,

so you measured and measured.

You measured and measured.

You measured and measured.

You measured and measured.

You measured and measured.

You measured and measured.