Ten Most Read Poets @ North of Oxford 2022

Ten most read poets as determined by the readership of North of Oxford for 2022

How Dreams Grow by Manasi Diwakar

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2022/03/12/how-dreams-grow-by-manasi-diwakar/

Layers of Blankets by Doug Holder

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2022/08/08/layers-of-blankets-by-doug-holder/

Pandemic of Violence Anthology II – Poets Speak

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2022/08/20/pandemic-of-violence-anthology-ii-poets-speak/

The Ballad of Morbid and Putrid By Sawyer Lovett

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2022/01/11/the-ballad-of-morbid-and-putrid-by-sawyer-lovett/

Pandemic of Violence Anthology I – Poets Speak

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2021/12/27/pandemic-of-violence-anthology/

Sisson’s by Eric D. Goodman

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2022/01/11/sissons-by-eric-d-goodman/

High Stakes by Ryan Quinn Flanagan

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2022/02/12/high-stakes-by-ryan-quinn-flanagan/

Two Poems by Susana H. Case

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2022/02/12/two-poems-by-susana-h-case/

The Game by Matthew Ussia

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2022/10/16/the-game-by-matthew-ussia/

Two Poems by Kerry Trautman

https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2022/02/12/two-poems-by-kerry-trautman/

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The Ballad of Morbid and Putrid By Sawyer Lovett

The Ballad of Morbid and Putrid

.

How many times

Did she tell me I’d be

p e r f e c t

if I were a boy,

further pulverizing my

tender lesbian heart.

.

& here I am

all these years later;

relocations & relationships,

addiction & recovery,

all these miles & memories later.

.

They say you never forget

your first

            crush

            love

            heartbreak

& I am certain, having outlived mine

remembering is memorial.

.

I will always wonder

what she would think

of the boy I became;

of the man in progress

of the person she knew

but never really met.

Would I be perfect now

in this same skin, differently shaped?

.

I will always miss her

will always wonder

if knowing myself earlier

could have saved us both.

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Sawyer Lovett is a writer, bookseller, and professor. He is a pretty good person, but he is always trying to be better.

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