Katy Read writes:

Alex Lemon is warm and affable on the phone, and it’s easy to see how he acquired the nickname “Happy” as a freshman at Macalester College. But as the title of his memoir, the name is weighted with irony.

“Happy” covers a decidedly unhappy couple of years in Lemon’s life, starting in 1997, when the hard-partying 19-year-old and former baseball star learned that he had a brain malformation, suffered a series of strokes, endured a deep depression, underwent risky brain surgery and was left with permanent disabilities and chronic pain. Lemon made it through it all with help from loved ones — particularly his mother, an eccentric sculptor who cared for and encouraged him through the crisis.

Lemon, now 32, graduated from Macalester, received a master of fine arts degree from the University of Minnesota, taught at Macalester from 2004 to 2007 and has published three books of poetry. He spoke from Fort Worth, where he now teaches at Texas Christian University.

The Star-Tribune interview is about the events chronicled in Happy. But I’m interested in his poetry, and I hope he will read some of his poetry. He has written 3 books of poetry so far, Mosquito, Hallelujah Blackout and Fancy Beasts. Here is the poem Mosquito:

Mosquito

You want evidence of the street
fight? A gutter-grate bruise & concrete scabs–
here are nails on the tongue,
a mosaic of glass shards on my lips.

I am midnight banging against house
fire. A naked woman shaking
with the sweat of need.

An ocean of burning diamonds
beneath my roadkill, my hitchhiker
belly fills sweet. I am neon blind & kiss
too black. Dangle stars–

let me sleep hoarse-throated in the desert
under a blanket sewn from spiders.
Let me be delicate & invisible.

Kick my ribs, tug my hair.
Scream you’re gonna miss me
when I’m gone. Sing implosion
to this world where nothing is healed.

Slap me, I’ll be any kind of sinner.

He’s certainly not shy in this poem, is he? As I was rummaging for more information, I came across this article on Alex Lemon in the TCU Daily Skiff from January 2009. There was a little overlap between this article and the Star-Tribune interview, but here was a bit that got me:

Lemon jots down ideas for future poems using a voice recorder and revises old work, he said. After the surgery, Lemon said he never fully recovered the ability to write by hand, so he prefers to use a voice recorder to take down ideas.

One of the many lessons of Alex Lemon’s life story is, a person doesn’t even have to be able to write, to be a poet. That’s something to think about.

Lemon will be at Magers & Quinn Booksellers, 3038 Hennepin Avenue South, Minneapolis, at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday. He will be at Micawbers Bookstore, 2238 Carter Avenue, St. Paul, at 7 p.m. Friday.

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