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


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live, 18 Years of Beach Poets 08/31/08, Chicago
video See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her prose “A Life Goes By”, then her poems “Conversations, a day of grieving, 1/22/94 four” and “Not Knowing” (all read for Grandparents Day), then her poems “You’ve Tucked us Women Away(for the 9/8/1916 bid to prove that women were capable of serving as military dispatch riders, Augusta and Adeline Van Buren arrive in Los Angeles, after a 60-day, 5,500 mile cross-country motorcycle trip),Khrushchev(for the 9/13/1953 date Nikita Khrushchev was appointed General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union), and “Explore your Imagination” (written 9/14, on Live Creative Day) from the Janet Kuypers poetry book “Every Event of the Year (Volume Two: July-December)” during The Café Gallery 9/8/20 Book Reading in The Café Gallery 2020 book reading series (video filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera; posted on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr).
video See a Facebook live video stream of Janet Kuypers reading her prose “A Life Goes By”, then her poems “Conversations, a day of grieving, 1/22/94 four”, “Not Knowing”, “You’ve Tucked us Women Away”, “Khrushchev”, and “Explore your Imagination” from the Janet Kuypers poetry book “Every Event of the Year (Volume Two: July-December)” during The Café Gallery 9/8/20 Book Reading in The Café Gallery 2020 book reading series (from a Samsung S9 camera).

Conversations,
a day of grieving,
1/22/94 four

i was ten
when my grandfather died

we visited him the week before
and his last words to me
were,

“you’re the most beautiful girl
in the world”

i went to the funeral
his eyes closed
dressed in a suit
hands folded

he never wore a suit

and everyone
brothers, sisters,
cousins, uncles
talked about past weddings
other times together

i wanted to tell them
to pay him some respect

don’t laugh
don’t be happy

he’s in that coffin
up there
in the front of the room
he’s dead

they’re going to bury him tomorrow

but this is how things were
and i was only ten


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