The Keys to the Jail

Keetje Kuipers is a native of the Northwest. She earned her B.A. at Swarthmore College and her M.F.A. at the University of Oregon. She has been the recipient of a number of fellowships, including those from the Vermont Studio Center, Squaw Valley Community of Writers, and Oregon Literary Arts.In 2007 Keetje completed her tenure as the Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writing Resident, which provided her with seven months of solitude in Oregon's Rogue River Valley. She used her time there to complete work on her book, Beautiful in the Mouth, which was awarded the 2009 A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize and was published in 2010 by BOA Editions. It contains poems previously published in Prairie Schooner, West Branch, Willow Springs, and AGNI, among others. You can also listen to her read her work—which has been nominated seven years in a row for the Pushcart Prize—at the online audio archive From the Fishouse. Keetje’s second book, The Keys to the Jail, is forthcoming from BOA Editions in the spring of 2014, and contains poems previously published in American Poetry Review, Jubilat, and the Indiana Review.Keetje was a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University from 2009-2011, and she was the Emerging Writing Lecturer at Gettysburg College from 2011-2012. Currently she is an Assistant Professor at Auburn University where she lives with her family and their dog, Bishop (named after Elizabeth, of course).

This highly anticipated second collection boldly addresses female anger, reaching beyond traditional roles for a new place in the world.

ContentsGoodbye Is ForeverAnother Time, Another Place 1Wolf Season 2Our Last Vacation 3If One of Us Can¿t Live Like This 4In a Sentimental Mood 5Lover Long Gone 6Dear John Letter, Never Sent 7Stowaway Future 8Thief, ThiefThe Extinct 10Sometimes a Season Changes Overnight 11Just Outside 12Brotherhood 14Getting Over the Future 15What I Thought Then 16Traces of the Imperfectly Erased 17In Medias Res 18Warning Posted at the Marin Headlands:People Have Been Swept from the Cliffs and Drowned 19All the Rivers in the World 20The Open SpacesA Year of Rain The Keys to the Jail 22Birthday Poem 23Letter to an Inmate in Solitary Confinement 24The Ocean 26Melancholy 27The Loneliness 29Too Many Bridges 30Overwinter 31Please Check Under the Bed 32Bees, And Other Dead Things Found in Winter 33Every Bright Thing 34Drought 35Five Women Ending in a FlowerI. The Girl 37II. The Older Woman 39III. The Whore 40IV. The Femme 42V. The Wife 44Poison on the StreetDog Gun Lake 47Speaking as the Male Poet 48For All the Dead Lovelies 49I Will Away 50The Oar 51Abstinence 53Sick Days 54Perfect Crime 55I Wasn¿t Searching for a New Language, But a New Meaning 56Some AdviceAt the Museum of Modern Art 58Cold Comfort in October 59Entreaty 60Some Advice for Both of Us 61Applied Science 62Dolores Park 63The Doctor 64The Story 66Ought 67Something with a Heart in It 68A Beautiful Night for the Rodeo 69Jonathan Plays in the Key of E 70