{"id":3183,"date":"2020-09-13T15:34:23","date_gmt":"2020-09-13T15:34:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barrowstreet.org\/press\/?page_id=3183"},"modified":"2020-09-15T23:28:03","modified_gmt":"2020-09-15T23:28:03","slug":"dixon","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/barrowstreet.org\/press\/dixon\/","title":{"rendered":"Dixon"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t4X2\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tan online poetry journal\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto by Melissa Hotchkiss\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tResignation\t\t\t\t\t<\/h5>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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by Laura Dixon<\/em><\/p>\n

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Some things I cannot master. Roofing,
\nfor one. I made it as far as the tear-off,
\nbut tar and nails are depressing
<\/p>\n

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as Greek drama, car commercials,
\nall designed to teach you
\nwhat your best efforts won\u2019t amount to.
<\/p> \n

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Mostly I remember driving a nail through
\nmy shoe. I walk straight into tragedy,
\nburn myself every time
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on my microwave dinners. I don\u2019t believe
\nin steam or steel, despite the object lessons.
\nOn the bus a guy with a cane said I smelled
<\/p>\n

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like tar. The Jesus-fish symbol on his neck
\nstretched around the word BLIND. I thought
\nmaybe I should brand myself TRAGIC
<\/p>\n

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or something else hopelessly binding.
\nHe asked me what I was building.
\nI\u2019m through. I swallowed my hammer
<\/p>\n

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trying to pry out my eyes. I cast myself
\ndown from the roof. To Hell with Jesus;
\nwhat would Oedipus do?
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Poet's Statement: When I was living in Austin, TX, I rode the bus with a guy who had a tattoo of the word \u201cBLIND\u201d inside of an ichthys\u2014a Christian symbol whose name derives from the ancient Greek word for fish. My mind aswirl with Ancient Greek and Christian traditions, I adopted the persona of this would-be roofer with an overblown sense of personal tragedy and made his monologue a highly ironized, darkly humorous, and self-indulgent performance that escalates everyday woes to cataclysm and makes utter ruin appeal: sometimes we don\u2019t want to be saved; sometimes we\u2019d rather lean into defeat. <\/p>\n

Bio:\u00a0Laura Dixon has an MFA in poetry from the Michener Center for Writers at UT Austin, where she also served as Associate Editor of Bat City Review<\/em>. Her work has appeared in The Cincinnati Review, Notre Dame Review, DMQ Review, The Cortland Review, RHINO, Painted Bride Quarterly<\/em>, and elsewhere. She lives outside Chicago and teaches high school English and creative writing.<\/strong>
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4X2 an online poetry journal Photo by Melissa Hotchkiss Resignation by Laura Dixon Some things I cannot master. Roofing, for one. I made it as far as the tear-off, but tar and nails are depressing as Greek drama, car commercials, all designed to teach you what your best efforts won\u2019t amount to. Mostly I remember…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"full-width-page.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3183","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/barrowstreet.org\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/barrowstreet.org\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/barrowstreet.org\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barrowstreet.org\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barrowstreet.org\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3183"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/barrowstreet.org\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3200,"href":"https:\/\/barrowstreet.org\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3183\/revisions\/3200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/barrowstreet.org\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}