[the Writing of Kuypers]    [JanetKuypers.com]    [Bio]    [Poems]    [Prose]

Listen to the CD recording from the CD Rough Mixes, by Pointless Orchestra

Order this iTunes track: from Chaots in Motion (a 6 CD set)...Or order the entire CD set from iTunes CD:

Listen: (3:38) to this recording from Fusion

Watch this YouTube video live, 18 Years of Beach Poets 08/31/08, Chicago

Watch this YouTube video live at the Lake County 2010 Poetry Bomb at Independence Grove forest preserve 04/18/10

See YouTube video of Kuypers reading the poem Scars 1997 live 5/22/13 at the Café Gallery in Chicago (Sony)

See YouTube video of Kuypers reading the poem Scars 1997 live 5/22/13 at the Café Gallery in Chicago (Canon)

See YouTube video of Kuypers hosting the open mic 5/22/13 at Gallery Cabaret’s the Café Gallery in Chicago, including this poem

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her Scars 2015 medley (based on parts of the prose poem Scars and the poems Scars 1997 and Scars 2000 10/6/15 at Quenchers open mic in Chicago (Cfs)

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her Scars 2015 medley (based on parts of the prose poem Scars and the poems Scars 1997 and Scars 2000 10/6/15 at Quenchers open mic in Chicago (Cps)

See YouTube video (Cfs) of Janet Kuypers reading 5 poems: Once Wanted You as my Friend, Escaping Every Cage, and a Scars medley (based on parts of the prose poem Scars and the poems Scars 1997 and Scars 2000, then Too Far and Children, Churches and Daddies 10/6/15 at Quenchers open mic in Chicago

See YouTube video (Cps) of Janet Kuypers reading 5 poems: Once Wanted You as my Friend, Escaping Every Cage, and a Scars medley (based on parts of the prose poem Scars and the poems Scars 1997 and Scars 2000, then Too Far and Children, Churches and Daddies 10/6/15 at Quenchers open mic in Chicago

Scars 1997 I wear my scars like badges. These deep marks show through from under my skin like war paint on an Apache chief. Decorated with feathers, the skins of his prey. I have a scar over my left knee. It’s left over from a bout with poison ivy I had after climbing a mountainside. The four-inch long slice curves around my leg, almost perfectly defining the muscles in my thigh. I have a scar on my right shin. I slipped on a patch of rocks and cut up the lower half of my leg and filled it with gravel and dirt. Joe poured hydrogen peroxide on my leg and wrapped my wounds with paper towels because the cuts were so wide spread. An hour later I was on a plane home, so I could tend to my wounds in greater detail. Tend to my wounds in depth. Now all that is left is a two-inch line down the side of my leg. Although it wasn’t a very deep cut, it looks like it went straight to the bone. I have a circular scar on my left calf, from getting off a motorcycle and sliding my leg over the scalding hot exhaust pipe. It has been seven years since I gained that scar, and with each year I see it fade away just a little. I can still see it, but the memory is slowly slipping away. My cat scratched me on my wrist once when we had to give her medication. Cats don’t like taking pills, or having ointment dabbed on and liquid poured over their wounds. When giving her pills, we’d grab all her paws, pull her head back by the nape of her neck, pry her jaws wide open so the pill will fall back and she is forced to swallow it. But sometimes she’d move too much and a paw would slip out of our grasp. And now, over the bone on my left wrist, a long thin scar stares at me defiantly. I tell people that if they wake up with bruises and cuts they don’t remember, then they must have had fun the night before. But each marking, each scar is a story, is a memory. It is a way to remember how you lived. And it is with these marks that I gauge my living. It is with these marks that I feel decorated. Copyright Janet Kuypers. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission.