Originally published in Willow Springs 83
From the author
Notes on “Duck Duck Goose” and “Fish Tank”
“Duck Duck Goose” actually arose from a creative nonfiction piece I was writing at the time. When I sat down to write the poem, I was already concerned with repetition as a way to enact the trickiness of memory. I noticed after a few stanzas that this poem wanted to be a villanelle. “Duck Duck Goose” is fairly true to the villanelle form, besides omitting a few lines and using slant rhyme, which again I did to enact the sense of hazy memory. “Fish Tank” went through a few phases of revision— at first it concerned two separate events, but then I was rightly advised to focus on the fish tank and go ahead and write another poem for the lines I ended up cutting. Workshops are good for something, after all.
Music, Food, Booze, Tattoos, Kittens, etc..
I have a very energetic one-year-old blue nose pitbull named Leila, so most afternoons you’ll find me walking with her. During our daily 3-mile walk, I listen to podcasts. I’m a voracious listener of podcasts— be they true crime (Last Podcast on the Left, My Favorite Murder, Dr. Death, Teachers Pet, etc.) or news (anything from NPR, Abe Lincoln’s Top Hat) or storytelling (The Moth, Invisibilia, Lore) or just people reading riddles. In the evenings, it’s Malbec from a box or bust while I work on my poetry manuscript and try to stop Leila from chasing my cat, Penny. I spend a lot of time grading papers, too, but no one wants to hear about that.
About Caitlyn Curran
Duck Duck Goose:
Fish Tank:
Caitlyn Curran is a third-year MFA candidate and English instructor at the University of Idaho. She serves as the current Marketing Editor for the literary journal Fugue. Her recent work can be found in: The American Journal of Poetry, Basalt, Hubbub, Miramar, PANK, Raleigh Review, Queen Mob’s Tea House, Willow Springs and elsewhere. She was a 2018 Centrum Fellow at the Port Townsend Writers Conference.
Twitter @ccurranpoetry & @fuguejournal
Photos of Leila and Penny on IG @caitlynccurran
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