Caterpillar Girls from book Crumpled Paper Dolls: a New OrLeANs poet

http://www.matthewnolan.com Matthew NOLAN is a nationally recognized poet and the author of the acclaimed books Exhuming Juliet: a New OrLeANs poet® and Crumpled Paper Dolls: a New OrLeANs poet. While living in New Orleans bohemia, Matthew Nolan wrote his first book Crumpled Paper Dolls. Nolan achieved his dream when he printed up one hundred books to sell out of his bicycle basket in the French Quarter. Soon thereafter, Matthew Nolan got an unexpected break from a major bookstore chain, placing his first book alongside Pablo Neruda, Sylvia Plath, and Anne Sexton on bookstore shelves across America.

Now, Crumpled Paper Dolls, a book of poetry, prose, and journals, is archived in the State Library of Louisiana. Excerpts were read to an audience of one million on BBC radio. Nolan's acclaim grew when he was chosen for The State of Poem, a film documentary that explores the lives and poetry of influential contemporary American poets. PBS soon followed by spotlighting Nolan's life, dreams, and writing career in the popular television series Roadtrip Nation. His second book, Exhuming Juliet, a book of poetry, love letters, and journals, is Nolan's latest contribution to the literary world.

http://matthewnolan.com
http://aNewOrLeANspoet.com

Poem from book
Crumpled Paper Dolls: a New OrLeANs poet
pages 68-69

Caterpillar Girls

Should have known!
Should have known!
Between a phony butterfly
and a never evolving caterpillar—

Her pleasant sincerity is a funny hat
that droops over her face,
a blind dunce,
a cartoon caterpillar;
a squirming, eyeless caterpillar,
on its back in loose dirt,
like Marilyn Monroe posing on satin sheets
saying,
"Me! Me! Pick Me! Love Me!"

If only she could see her dirty white lies,
countless as her dirty green caterpillar legs
spread as wide as a caterpillar can,
collecting tree sap between them,
pasting her tiny opening shut

With her wide, munchy caterpillar mouth she says,
"Sorry I am a liar! So sorry!
Pick me! Pick me!"

She can't cocoon.
She can't become pretty things like
the phony butterfly skipping in the air,
dodging under a thorn bush to
organize a glassy, green, symphony of caterpillars
to inch towards me, to befriend me,
inching inside my belly button, to love me,
then inching back out with my shredded heart lining,
bloody red tears of skin like a menstrual cycle
hanging from mushy caterpillar lips,
bright red Kool-Aid lips;
Gory green caterpillar girls that never evolve and say,
"Me! Pick Me! I am sorry I lied! Pick me!"

Copyright © 2004 Matthew Nolan

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[theresamsmith]

This has always been my favorite Matthew Nolan poem. My first connection with you referenced it. You responded "Clever." That's when I knew I understood you and you understand me, within an evolving cocoon inhabited by many lifetimes of poets.