Notes After the Interview

by Evelyn Hooven (February 2018)

The Other Room, Vanessa Bell, 1930s

hy not say it to my face?

Does something show in my face?

Your fingers are nervous—

Do they dismiss

The empty-handed,

Are they reaching conclusions?

Why you continue

And continue

Is more than I know.

You weren’t always

Administrator,

Once you dealt

With stutterers;

We might have been

A team, but

Here are charts

Of Debits:

The times are harsh.

I see you are good

At provisoes

And small print

With hidden traps,

But what have you done

With her,

The one

Who faltered

And is missing?

She can’t be in your jacket

Because the pockets

Are stitched—

There are limits

To how small

She can make herself

Or how long

She can hold out

Without air.

But she’s been noticed

And you must

Shut the door.

____________________________

Evelyn Hooven graduated from Mount Holyoke College and received her M.A. from Yale University, where she also studied at The Yale School of Drama. A member of the Dramatists’ Guild, she has had presentations of her verse dramas at several theatrical venues, including The Maxwell Anderson Playwrights Series in Greenwich, CT (after a state-wide competition) and The Poet’s Theatre in Cambridge, MA (result of a national competition). Her poems and translations from the French have appeared in ART TIMES, Chelsea, The Literary Review, THE SHOp: A Magazine of Poetry (in Ireland), The Tribeca Poetry Review, Vallum (in Montreal), and other journals, and her literary criticism in Oxford University’s Essays in Criticism.