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

the poetry audio CD set“HopeChest in the Attic”

Order this iTunes track from the poetry audio CD Hope Chest In The Attic 13 Years of Poetry & Prose...Or order the entire CD set from iTunes:

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her prose “Driving By His House” (2:08) live at the Café 2/26/08 in Chicago (this video was posted on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr). #janetkuypers

See YouTube video 12/04/10 from the TV camera in Lake Villa at Swing State, live in her show the Stories of Women

See YouTube video
12/04/10 in Lake Villa at Swing State, live in her “Visual Nonsense” show the Stories of Women

See Kuypers’ full show video with this & more from the TV monitor in the the Stories of Women show, in Visual Nonsense, live in Lake Villa 12/04/10 at Swing State

See the full show video of Kuypers reading this & more in the the Stories of Women show in in Visual Nonsense, live in Lake Villa 12/04/10 with this writing at Swing State (last line of last story cut off)

Order this track off the CD The Stories of Women (which is now available for sale through amazon.com)

See YouTube video Live at My Soul in the Trunk of my Car at Trunk Fest (part 2), in an outdoor Evanston IL feature 05/28/11

See YouTube video of the Janet Kuypers poetry feature “My Soul in the Trunk of my Car (part 2)” at Trunk Fest, live 5/28/11, where she performed her poems “the Burning”, “Death Takes Many Forms”, “Keep Them Apart”, “one by one, the beech trees fell”, her short prose “Driving By His House”, and her poems “Keep Driving”, “Fantastic Car Crash”, and “I’m Not Sick, But I’m Not Well” (this was posted on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr). #janetkuypers #janetkuyperspoetryshow.

Download the chapbook with this writing in My Soul in the Trunk of my Car (part 2)

See YouTube video
of Janet Kuypers reading her poem Driving By His House from the collection book Exaro Versus live 9/25/13 at the open mic the Café Gallery in Chicago (Samsung)

See YouTube video from 5/3/17 of Janet Kuypers’ May 2017 Book Release Reading at Half Price Books, where she said her haiku “uphill” then read her prose “Driving by his House” in “Hands that Hurt”, then her poems “Medication” and “Empty Chocolate Counter” in “Things Found in Books” (this video filmed from a Sony camera; on Facebook, Twitter, Linked in, Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr). #janetkuypers #janetkuyperspoetry #janetkuypersbookreading

See YouTube video from 5/3/17 of Janet Kuypers’ May 2017 Book Release Reading at Half Price Books, where she said her haiku “uphill” then read her prose “Driving by his House” in “Hands that Hurt”, then her poems “Medication” and “Empty Chocolate Counter” in “Things Found in Books” (this video filmed from a Lumix camera; on Facebook, Twitter, Linked in, Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr). #janetkuypers #janetkuyperspoetry #janetkuypersbookreading

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ “December 2017 Book Release Reading” 12/6/17, where she reads from the book “Negative Space” her haiku and short poems “coincidence?”, “translation (2014 haiku)”, “oceans”, “behind”, “out there”, “opposite”, and “addiction”, her micro prose “Driving By His House”, and her poems “Earth was Crying”, “Your Imaginary Soul Weighs 21 Grams”, “Just by Holding His Hand”, and “Only an Observer” in “Community Poetry @ Half Price Books” (Lumix 2500 camera).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers at her 4/4/18 “Community Poetry @ Half Price Books” Austin feature reading, reading from the cc&d September-December 2017 issue collection book “Language of Untamed Spirit” her poem “Zenith of the Night Sky”, her haiku “eminence”, her short prose “Driving by His House”, and her poem “erasure poem: a Poetic History” at the only “Community Poetry @ Half Price Books” event, which she hosted during National Poetry Month (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera; posted on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Gary’s Blind Date” from her “a Woman on the Beach” show, “Being God” from her “Lake County Poetry Bomb” show, and then her poem “Keep Driving” and her prose “Driving by His House” from her “My Soul in the Trunk of my Car” Evanston show, all from her book “Chapter 48 (v 1)” 12/15/18 @ “Recycled Reads” (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera; posted on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Gary’s Blind Date” from her “a Woman on the Beach” show, “Being God” from her “Lake County Poetry Bomb” show, and then her poem “Keep Driving” and her prose “Driving by His House” from her “My Soul in the Trunk of my Car” Evanston show, all from her book “Chapter 48 (v 1)” 12/15/18 @ “Recycled Reads” (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera; posted on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “ends of the earth”, “Listen to Life”, “Amber Beads”, her prose “Driving By His House”, and her poems “Andrew Hettinger”, “Death”, “Anything for the Liquor Fix”, “Chess Game Again”, and “Children, Churches, and Daddies”, in set 4 from the cc&d July-December 2018 expanded issue collection book “Among the Debris” during the “Poetic License open mic 6/7/20 home edition” she hosted in Austin through a Facebook event page (this video was from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera, and was posted on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr).

See a Facebook live video stream of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “ends of the earth”, “Listen to Life”, “Queueing in Line and Shaping Your Life”, “Amber Beads”, her prose “Driving By His House”, and her poems “Andrew Hettinger”, “Death”, “Anything for the Liquor Fix”, “Chess Game Again”, and “Children, Churches, and Daddies”, in set 4 from the cc&d July-December 2018 expanded issue collection book “Among the Debris” during the “Poetic License open mic 6/7/20 home edition” she hosted in Austin, but globally through a Facebook event page (from a Samsung S9 camera).

Driving By His House

I know it’s pretty pathetic of me, I don’t know what I’m trying to prove. I don’t even want to see him again. I don’t want to have to think about him, I don’t want to think about his big eyebrows or the fact that he hunched over a little when he walked or that he hurt me so much.

I know it’s pretty pathetic of me, but sometimes when I’m driving I’ll take a little detour and drive by his house. I’ll just drive by, I won’t slow down, I won’t stop by, I won’t say hello, I won’t beat his head in, I won’t even cry. I’ll just drive by, see a few cars in the driveway, see no signs of life through the windows, and then I’ll just keep driving.

I don’t know why I do it. He never sees me, and I never see him, although I thought I didn’t want to see him anyway. When I first met him I wasn’t afraid of him. Now I’m so afraid that I have to drive by his house every once in a while, just to remind myself of the fear. We all like the taste of fear, you know, the thought that there’s something out there stronger than us. The thought that there’s something out there we can beat, even if we have to fight to the death.

But that can’t be it, no, it just can’t be, I don’t like this fear, I don’t like it. I don’t want to drive by, I want to be able to just go on with my life, to not think about it. I want to be strong again. I want to be strong.

So today I did it again, I haven’t done it for a while, drive by his house, but I did it again today. When I turned on to his street I put on my sunglasses so that in case he saw me he couldn’t tell that I was looking. And then I picked up my car phone and acted like I was talking to someone.

And I drove by, holding my car phone, talking to my imaginary friend, trying to unobviously glance at the house on my left. There’s a lamppost at the end of his driveway. I always noticed it, the lampshade was a huge glass ball, I always thought it was ugly. This time three cars were there. One of those could have been his. Through the front window, no people, no lights. I drive around a corner, take a turn and get back on the road I was supposed to be on.

One day, when I’m driving by and I get that feeling again, that feeling like death, well then, I just might do it again.