Lynn Pattison, 5/22/2011

Current Occupation: retired educator, writer
Former Occupation: Public School teacher
Contact Information: Lynn Pattison’s poetry has appeared in many literary journals, including: Heliotrope, Rhino, The MacGuffin, Harpur Palate, The Notre Dame Review and Poetry East. She is the author of several poetry collections: tesla’s daughter (March St. Press), Walking Back the Cat (Bright Hill Press) and Light That Sounds Like Breaking, (Mayapple Press). Her work has been anthologized in several venues, including: The Dire Elegies: 59 Poets on Endangered Species, edited by Robert Weir & Karla Merrifield (2006), and The Best of Branches 2004. Twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Pattison is past recipient of an Irving S. Gilmore Emerging Artist grant and a writing residency at the Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forest IL.

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Lumber Camp I

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Men may love having lots of women around, but
I have never enjoyed a pride of men. Put more
than two or three in a room and they suck all the
air, talking too loud—laughter like ack-ack fire.
Women’s cycles gradually synchronize when they
live under the same roof. What happens with men:
soldiers, lumberjacks, sailors? Do their testosterone
levels even out? If so you’d think they’d even
out at an average, or align to the least common
denominator, but evidence suggests otherwise.
Maybe close quarters causes levels to escalate,
ending in a “leapfrog” effect, one influencing the
next until they think they can destroy any enemy,
cut down firs bigger than battleships.