Ars Poetica as a Valencia Orange
by Sarah Emanuels
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Sarah Emanuels is an upperclassman at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she studies English and creative writing. She loves poetry and currently acts as the literary director and editor of her university’s literary magazine, The Coraddi.
Ars Poetica as a Valencia Orange
Using a pair of kitchen scissors, she cut herself
a valencia orange, one closest to the top.
That valencia orange, so ripe, she could tell
just from the way it hung on its branch.
Drooping, vivid, gleaming orange, how
you fall as naturally as a woman lay—
sprawled out, like a clean blouse on a line,
fluttering with each gust of wind.
She angled the scissors ever so carefully.
Her fingers grasping the device, her eyes
on the sweet fruit, anticipating and controlling
every direction in which it could fall.
She, not the maker but an admirer of sorts.
The perpetrator of when such a fruit would
meet its end. Or perhaps its new beginning—
to be reimagined as juice in a glass, as garland
over her fireplace, as syrupy marmalade.
That sweet orange, O how it
hangs as naturally as it falls.
Interview with the Poet
1. What was your inspiration for this piece?
My inspiration for this piece was Victoria Chang’s poem, “Ars Poetica as Birdfeeder and Hummingbird.” I really enjoyed Chang’s simple choice to use the hummingbird as symbolism when describing poetry. Ars poeticas allow a writer to reflect on the creative process in such an unconventional and interesting way. I found myself appreciating Chang’s way of questioning the act of poetry through the hummingbird and herself in that piece. I wanted to be just as introspective as her narrator and looked for common things within my life, which I take for granted, to somehow relate the act or thing to poetry. Thus, deciding to focus on the orange.