Erin Servey, one of the first poets to be published in Klio, is a State College native who has seamlessly bridged the town-gown divide. Similarly, she has toggled between publishing her poems online in Klio and publishing in Penn State’s print journal Kalliope.
At Penn State, Servey is double-majoring in English and Psychology, as well as pursuing a BA/MA in creative writing. Servey was inspired by her high school creative writing class to join the program, saying that she has wanted to be a part of the program ever since she heard of it. In her free time, she enjoys reading, photography, exercising, and swing dancing. One of her favorite books is I Am the Messenger by Marcus Zusak, and one of her favorite poems is “Brilliance” by Mark Doty.
Servey’s poem “Asheville” appeared in Klio’s first edition in 2016. Servey explains the poem this way:
“My poem references the tragic death of Zelda Fitzgerald (the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald). She died along with nine other patients in Highland Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina, when a fire started in the middle of the night on March 10, 1948. From what I’ve read about her, Zelda’s story intrigues me: not just her death, but her struggle with mental illness (which is why she was at Highland Hospital), her painting talent, and the fact that, it’s said, Scott even got some of his writing ideas from her. I submitted this poem in particular because I felt proud of it, and really just felt it was complete–also, different from some poems I’ve written in the past. Somehow it felt more fresh.”
Listen to Erin explain and read her poem “Asheville” in this podcast.
In addition, two of her poems were published in the latest edition of our sister print publication, Kalliope 2017: “Lulu Leaves” and “Dreaming in Isolation.” She had this to say about these two poems:
“‘Lulu Leaves’ is actually about my great-grandma, who passed away. It’s about the ambivalent feeling I had when she was gone. A lot of it was guilt in not feeling sad enough (whatever that would have been). I dealt with it differently than the rest of my family, and this was the poem that I wrote in result of all that. ‘Dreaming in Isolation’ is more of a meditative thoughtful piece about the desire for closeness in regards to dancing and the butterfly effect.”
On November 12th, one of Servey’s poems will be published in a book titled Pennsylvania’s Best Emerging Poets, one among a collection of publications featuring emerging poets in each state. After discovering Servey’s poems in Kalliope, Z Publishing House contacted the poet to ask for a poem to include in the collection.
Thanks to Erin for allowing us to share these two Kalliope poems online in Klio:
Dreaming in Isolation
We all know bitter-sweet cravings for connection.
Dean Martin’s jazz played in an empty room exaggerates loneliness
of haptic melodies all too familiar, when deep thought leads
you to imagine another hand’s moisture
meeting yours and five six seven eight like taste
of an exotic fruit you may or may not enjoy. Yet swallow either way.
To dance with another you must endure awkward seeds of eye contact
–or lack thereof–and sway in the invisible breeze of movement, realizing steps crave
closeness too–a glass shatters when a hand closes in
with such force…and sometimes, the butterfly effect would say
the closing of your eyelids before bed at night
might precipitate rainfall. It’s in the smallest actions.
Even a turn away from your dance partner pulls you
back with momentum that presses hands together again.
Sometimes, it rains at night.
Lulu Leaves
Sounds of children playing
fade outside my window.
I sit in my disheveled room
with a cup of tepid black tea,
reading a paperback, Shakespeare tragedy.
It’s a Sunday afternoon, the phone rings,
my mom’s voice answers.
I imagine my mother listening to the sullen voice
of my thin grandmother who gives
news from the nursing home where Lulu lives,
where my grandmother visited every day.
Great-grandmother on my father’s side,
Lulu.
Her ghostly lids had finally closed
to the routine cafeteria meals they serve there—
a meatloaf and sides, or spaghetti, rarely anything else–
the ones she never remembered anyway.
I have only seen her once a year—or
twice at most but I should care.
I should cry.
The last time I saw her she forgot my name.
My mother invites me to say a Rosary later,
for my great-grandmother’s passing soul,
she had just come upstairs
after giving my dad the phone.
The football-game noise pervades from the television downstairs to my room.
A leaf whisks by.
(This post prepared by Klio poetry editor Rachel Ward, with additions and edits by Musings Editors Abby Woods and Samantha Kang, as well as faculty adviser Alison Jaenicke.)