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


video See the YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “ever since my childhood”, “Opened the Door for All”, “Just too High for Just one Man”, “Evolving with Mutant Genes”, and “Yes, For Our Future Too” from the Down in the Dirt 11/20 v177 book “Pipe Dreams”; live 11/4/20 in honor of “Community Poetry” (video 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 poems “ever since my childhood”, “Opened the Door for All”, “Just too High for Just one Man”, “Evolving with Mutant Genes”, and “Yes, For Our Future Too” from the Down in the Dirt 11/20 v177 book “Pipe Dreams” live 11/4/20 in honor of “Community Poetry” (this video filmed and streamed with a Samsung S9 camera).
video See a YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Unwind and Revere Yourself(written on the 4th Saturday in November, on and for International Aura Day), “Evolving with Mutant Genes(written 11/24, on and for the 1859 publication date of the Charles Darwin book “The Origin of Species”), “Yes, For Our Future Too(written on and for Thanksgiving), and “Ethical Thing to Do(written 11/28, on and for the day of the 1781 Zong massacre, where a British slave ship crew murders 133 Africans by dumping them into the sea to claim insurance), read from the Janet Kuypers poetry book “Every Event of the Year (Volume Two: July-December)” live during the 11/21/20 “Open Mic Showcase” (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera, and posted on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr).
video See a Facebook live video stream of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Unwind and Revere Yourself”, “Evolving with Mutant Genes”, and “Yes, For Our Future Too” from the Janet Kuypers poetry book “Every Event of the Year (Volume Two: July-December)” live 11/21/20 during the Open Mic Showcase Zoom meeting (from a Samsung S9 camera).
video See the YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “ever since my childhood”, “Oh, the book is Better than the Movie”, “Vessel to Spread the Word”, “Otherwise Reigned Supreme”, “Opened the Door for All”, “Just too High for Just one Man”, “Evolving with Mutant Genes”, and “Yes, For Our Future Too” from the v177 book “Pipe Dreams” installment of the Down in the Dirt issue collection book “Late Frost” for The Café Gallery 1/19/21 Book Reading in The Café Gallery Book Reading series (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera, and posted on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr).  #janetkuypers #janetkuyperspoetry #janetkuypersbookreading #janetkuypersthecafegallery
video See a Facebook live video stream of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “ever since my childhood”, “Oh, the book is Better than the Movie”, “Vessel to Spread the Word”, “Otherwise Reigned Supreme”, “Opened the Door for All”, “Just too High for Just one Man”, “Evolving with Mutant Genes”, and “Yes, For Our Future Too” from the v177 book “Pipe Dreams” installment of the Down in the Dirt issue collection book “Late Frost” for The Café Gallery 1/19/21 Book Reading in The Café Gallery Book Reading series (this video was filmed and streamed from a Samsung S9 camera).   #janetkuypers   #janetkuyperspoetry   #janetkuypersbookreading   #janetkuypersthecafegallery

Evolving with Mutant
                           Genes

Janet Kuypers
11/24/19 (the 1859 Charles Darwin
publish date of The Origin of Species)

When with a bunch of men
riding their motorcycles
north of Chicago,
I asked one man
if I could ride in the back
of his Honda Gold Wing.
The Dutch man, Van, said,
“okay, but I usually don’t let
Dutch women ride along
if they’re not blondes
with blue eyes...”
And I got so angry,
nearly yelling,
“look, my Dutch roots
go back to my great
great-great-great-great
grandfather born in 1767,
and all my Dutch family
I’ve ever known, have all had
brown hair and brown eyes,
so don’t you dare tell me
us Dutch people have
that recessive trait...”

and, of course,
I rode along
on the back of that bike,
but it made me think
about what traits
we genetically carry
from one generation
to the next,
and how it defines
how we live,
who we like
and how we carry
our genetic genes
from one generation
to the next.

Because,
as far as I know
genetically
we humans
all started
with brown hair
and brown eyes,
and I wonder
if this is why
I fall for
blue eyes so much.
Because, as I said,
genetically,
we all started
with brown hair
and brown eyes,
so why did it all
get so messed up
with this blue-eyed thing
in the first place anyway?

Well, scientists
just recently discovered
that the melanin
in our brown eyes
may have varied
over the years,
but only about
six to ten thousand
years ago was there
a mutated gene,
a mutant,
that was responsible
for producing
melanin
in the human eye.
Yes, only a few
thousand years ago
did some mutant
gene come along
to see if this
was something
that would work better
in the human race.
Because sometimes
that’s the way
genetics works,
some weird mutant gene
happens once
to see if it works
well for the species.
Sometimes it does,
sometimes it doesn’t,
which may account
for why
not all humans are now
blue eyed. It may
work for some areas
in the world,
but not for all,
so this mutant
blue-eyed gene
didn’t catch on
world-wide.

Which may be why
I’m so attracted
to that mutant gene,
something not so common.
But don’t worry,
the strongest genes
will survive
over generations,
I’ve learned that too,
as we all have,
and become stronger,
and better,
than we were before.
That’s how this whole
species works,
forever changing,
forever evolving.
That’s what we do.


Copyright © Janet Kuypers.

All rights reserved. No material
may be reprinted without express permission.



Like Janet Kuypers’ writing on any of these links below:

Add to Twitter    Add to Facebook    Add to digg    Add to Del.icio.us    Add to Google Bookmarks    Add to Mister Wong    Add to reddit    Add to Stumble Upon    Add to Technorati






my hand to an anim of jkchair



Kuypers at Artvilla


scars publications


Kuypers writing