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

Watch this YouTube video live at Beach Poets 07/13/08

07/13/08, Beach Poets Watch the entire performance video, which contains this poem (25:19), from the Internet Archive

Watch the YouTube video of this poem 08/28/11, first in in her book Contents Under Pressure, read on WZRD radio, from the Canon camera

See feature-length YouTube video 08/26/11 of the majority of the WZRD radio show with her reading poetry (incliding this writing) from the Canon camera

See YouTube video 7/10/16 of Janet Kuypers reading her 2 poems Climbing Trees and Death Takes Many Forms at the Austin open mic Kick Butt Poetry (tCanon Power Shot camera).

See YouTube video 7/10/16 of Janet Kuypers reading her 2 poems Climbing Trees and Death Takes Many Forms at the Austin open mic Kick Butt Poetry (from a Sony camera).

climbing trees. (written with D.J.) I you see, I was a girl, I didn’t climb trees, but I always wished for a tree house, one with a ladder so it would be easy to get to the top. So I could see the world from a different view. So I could feel like I have conquered. II Big trees, more fun, that’s what I’d think. Then when I’d get to about the height of a roof, our garage as a matter of fact, then the fear would set in. Not fear of falling from where I was, but of going higher. Higher, then too high. What is too high? III One of my co-workers decided one day that he wasn’t going to try anymore. That no one cared if he did a good job, so he just wouldn’t bother. And I thought, your coworkers shouldn’t be the scale you judge yourself on. You should be your scale, you should be trying because you need to know you can be better than what you are. Then I thought, maybe he never climbed trees. Copyright Janet Kuypers. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission.