Texas, Being: A State of Poems

by Jenny Browne (Editor)

Overview

Texas, Being: A State of Poems collects more than forty-five poems from a beautiful and brutal state. Some are about the music of their languages. Some speak to the dead, some to the sun, and others to omissions of history. One concerns a hedgehog cactus, and another a roller rink. From “Happy, Texas” to “Palestine, TX,” from seashores to skeletons to Selena, all are in one way or another about Texas, but good poems are always about more than one thing.

Selected by Jenny Browne, 2017 poet laureate of Texas, these poems draw a picture of one of America’s vastly sublime yet most audaciously independent corners. In these diverse voices, the state is a lovely and painful contradiction of space and meaning. Texas is a place “where blind catfish cruise” and wild asters grow. It’s a frame of mind where Jenny Boully writes “the history is unending” and Mexican American studies professor Christopher Carmona can “feel the slowness of time.” Jorge Luis Borges wrote of it as “an endless plain / Where a man’s cry dies a lonely death.” Victoria Chang writes that “there is so / much sky that even birds / get lost."

Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson describes her hometown as a “fiercely loving city tougher on the outside / but smooth as pecan shells,” and Naomi Shihab Nye reminds us to “be patient, sure there’s lots of bad around, / but more room for good too, with all this empty.” Whether it is Joshua Edwards imagining his photographer father or Primo Feliciano Marín’s declaration “Hail Texas, fraught with charms unknown,” these voices, past and present, give us a glimpse into the poetic soul of the nation’s most willful state.

Poets include Robert A. Ayres, Curtis Bauer, Jan Beatty, Layla Benitez-James, Jorge Luis Borges, Jenny Boully, Catherine Bowman, Susan Briante, Bobby Byrd, Christopher Carmona, Aline B. Carter, Rosemary Catacalos, Victoria Chang, Hayan Charara, Joshua Edwards, Tarfia Faizullah, Carrie Fountain, Vievee Francis, Mag Gabbert, Miriam Bird Greenberg, Lucy Griffith, Aaron Hand, Fady Joudah, Jim LaVilla-Havelin, Emma Lazarus, J. Estanislao Lopez, Primo Feliciano Marín, Pablo Miguel Martínez, Walter McDonald, Jasminne Mendez, Townsend Miller, Ange Mlinko, Naomi Shihab Nye, Shin Yu Pai, Cecily Parks, Emmy Pérez, Octavio Quintanilla, Iliana Rocha, Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson, ire’ne lara silva, Jeff Sirkin, Margo Tamez, Lao Yang, Loretta Diane Walker, Emily Winakur, and Matthew Zapruder.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781595342928
Publisher:	Trinity University Press
Publication date:	04/02/2024
Pages:	96
Sales rank:	523,665
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.10(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Jenny Browne is a professor of English and creative writing at Trinity University. Her most recent poetry collection is Fellow Travelers: New and Selected Poems. Her poems and essays have appeared most recently in the American Poetry Review, the Oxford American, Poetry, the Nation, and the New York Times. She served concurrent terms as the 2016–18 poet laureate of San Antonio and the 2017 poet laureate of Texas, and she was the 2019–20 Distinguished Fulbright Scholar at the Seamus Heaney Centre in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters in 2023. She lives in San Antonio.

Read an Excerpt

She was in a state, one might say, to suggest strong feeling. Or I state my case, when we’d like to put something clearly and be heard. In music, too, one can state a theme or melody. Some of these poems are about the music of their languages. One concerns a hedgehog cactus, another a roller rink. From “Happy, TX” to “Palestine, Texas,” and from seashores to skeletons to Selena. Some speak to our dead. Some to the sun. Others to the omissions of history. All are in one way or another about Texas, but as I like to tell my poetry students, good poems are always about more than one thing.

I borrowed the title for this book from the first poem I remember writing after arriving in the brutal and beautiful state I call home. My own poem is small in size, but she drives fast from human thirst to sharpened violence, from borders to allergies, from a far horizon toward a closer look at some roadkill.

Texas, Being

where blind catfish cruise

limestone caverns

from deeper we drink

while a man sweets tea

with his knife stirring

all the way down

border fires

making breathing a geography

mountain cedar

floating pollen fevers

bones in the road

sun bleached

possum grin just missing

the curb where she

like all the modern girls

paused to consider

her inventory of elsewhere

because we can

drive ten hours and some

how still be here

Ultimately, I believe it—like every poem in this book—is also about distance and intimacy, momentum

and stillness, and all the inheritances and surprises of still being here. 

And here too, here too, here too...

Table of Contents

Introduction by Jenny Browne

When I Stopped at the Exxon in Jourdanton by Robert A. Ayres

Happy, TX by Curtis Bauer

The Saddest Song by Jan Beatty

Snow Falling on Zebras by Layla Benitez-James

Texas by Jorge Luis Borges

The Yellow Rose of Texas by Jenny Boully

Heart by Catherine Bowman

Better Than Paris by Susan Briante

One Day during the Pandemic, an Earth Day Poem by Bobby Byrd

Something about Texas by Christophe r Carmona

Blue Celestial by Aline B. Carter

Borderline by Rosemary Catacalos

Marfa, Texas by Victoria Chang

The Symbolic Life by Hayan Charara

My Father at 32 by Joshua Edwards

Aubade: Summer, Texas byTarfia Faizullah

Ode at Skateland Texas by Carrie Fountain

Still Life with Summer Sausage, a Blade, and No Blood by Vievee Francis

Dear Chaos by Mag Gabbert

A Heron’s Age by Miriam Bird Greenberg

Lonestar by Lucy Griffith

One Year in Texas by Aaron Hand

Palestine, Texas by Fady Joudah

Fore Tell by Jim LaVilla-Havelin

In Exile by Emma Lazarus

Independence Day in West Texas by J. Estanislao Lopez

Texas by Primo Feliciano Marín de Porras

Gone Yanaguana by Pablo Miguel Martínez

Wishing for More Than Thunder by  Walter McDonald

In the Texas Summer Heat by Jasminne Mendez

A Letter from Texas by Townsend Miller

Lean Steer by Ange Mlinko

Texas Remedy by Naomi Shihab Nye

A Day without an Immigrant, Dallas, Texas by Shin Yu Pai

Texas Natives by Cecily Parks

Existence Is the Poem by Emmy Pérez

Hombres by Octavio Quintanilla

Another Selena Poem by Iliana Rocha

Rosary Beads by Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson

To the South by ire’ne lara silva

At Our Disposal by Jeff Sirkin

This place on earth by Margo Tamez

Jesus in Cowboy Boots by Loretta Diane Walker

Uvalde by Emily Winakur

First Morning in West Texas by Lao Yang

April Snow by Matthew Zapruder