Marguerite Scott-Copses Commentary

I recently submitted a packet for the much-dreaded "third-year review" process at my university, and I put my current manuscript in what's called the "supplemental binder." It included this poem, and many others about adolescence and early discovery/loss. After having turned it in I felt so vulnerable...like I'd put my childhood wounds on display for the entire department. I talked to a good friend and colleague about this, and he joked that "Come Visit My Childhood Wounds," was the almost-title of his first book. I guess there are some things we just can't get over about those years. I'm fascinated by the ways in which adolescence is such a blur, something like what Virginia Woolf calls "being blown through the Tube," but how, also, time becomes so crystallized by key moments that roll over us again and again. I wonder about what our emotional memories do to these moments, how distorted and energy-charged they become through time. "No. Final Answer," is about one such memory. Cue the Smiths, "Well I wonder..."



Marguerite Scott-Copses is a native of Charleston, SC where she currently teaches composition and poetry at The College of Charleston. She earned her Ph.D. in Creative Writing from The Florida State University and her work has appeared in Feminist Studies, The Journal of Poetry Therapy and The Green Hills Literary Lantern. But, she thinks these career facts much less important than her role as a new mother. Her days are spent, mostly, juggling classes, jotting down new surprises on scratch pieces of paper, changing diapers, and laughing at the absurdities of love intersecting with stress.