Though we lost MFA alumnus and longtime Writing faculty member Jeff Oaks during the past academic year, dozens of us in the Pitt English community carry his memory with great feeling. What we most remember about Jeff was the sense of play he brought to the act of writing. In this spirit, the Fall/Winter 2023 issue of T5F put out a call for "garbage poems," which former students and writing pals of Jeff remember well. We asked Writing Assistant Professor Diana Khoi Nguyen to contribute specifications for the contest as well as to select what she saw as the top two poems submitted. We're pleased to present to you the winning poems and authors: "A Tree Falls and I Look for My Roots" by Adam Cetra and Phyllis Sigal's "Why? is Fibonacci not spelled PHibonacci OR … aPHInity for Spirals." Click on the links to go to each poem, learn more aboiut the poet, and read our judge's comments on the poem.
A Tree Falls and I Look for My Roots
Adam Cetra (BA, Writing '01)
*ok we're back at the top and wow this is why they always had us on word limits huh*
I heard that Anne died today with morning Pop Tart in hand
*well wait it was four years ago I just heard today and uggghh no I WAS EATING THE POP TART wow maybe this poetry thing still isn't for me*
read it on a website her husband created
words on a screen
they matter when they're true
or something
so Jeff was an email/Anne was a website and bad happens in three so I better check on the rest
*these people helped me fix my stories so now I'll check on theirs and see which ones are still going and God the pretentiousness someone red pen that*
Anne is gone and she taught me first
and she had seen the world and she liked my stories and I wanted to put my book in her hands and I never wrote it and now she's gone
I am looking at
words on a screen again Facebook post this time
a friend eulogizing a friend and
ah the answer
to who's behind door number three
and it’s
…my friend's
…ex-wife’s
...dog’s owner
…Biscuit?
*this is*
*WHAT*
*she has her dog now*
*Pittsburgh MAN everyone knows everyone they say or maybe they all just hang out without me and ok wait*
the dog's name is Biscuit and her name was /Julianne
*stop wow I need water and a DayQuil before I keep going a-n-d my bag is at home so no pill or bottle or bill I was going to pay or checkbook or stamps or envelope or address label and what the hell kind of office am I running here*
McAdoo which also sounds like a cookie *so the Brits would say a biscuSTOP*
and I hear Jeff was a whole forest for others while he only taught me a bit of poetry one afternoon
*yeah that exercise someone made me go to and I was late and my poems were about being late and no one seemed amused*
and *here is where I'd do a play on Anne’s name too but I don't know what Campisi translates to (^who doesn't love Italian though eh^)*
*NO. what did I almost say there am I making too light of all this sad news well what else do I do I can't ask my teachers to fix my story anymore*
my other Jeff is fine as far as I can tell
still teaching but somewhere else
Allison is somewhere else too
but not that somewhere else
*He’s just Martin which meh
Now, Amend that is a win for nominative determinism you know considering the editing stories and what are all these words I've put on my screen I should probably try to heh Ame*
I'm here for what that's worth
*I actually carry that one folder of stories in my bag everywhere I go can I still say:*
my stories are too
sitting on what used to be trees in folders in a closet for 15 years
maybe Jeff/Anne/Julianne still had some
maybe Jeff or Allison still do
maybe I show up when they search their email for something they need and they think
# huhyeahhimwiththehair #
are my stories still alive
am I
*just*
*still*
words on the screen
Adam Cetra Esq. is a 2011 English Writing (Fiction) and Environmental Studies graduate, as well as a 2017 Pitt Law alumnus. He is a lawyer with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, currently serving under Chief Justice Debra Todd following six years with Justice Christine Donohue. He is an avid bike rider, attempted artist, and erstwhile writer of fiction, with three novels he swears he will finish, as well as a host of microfiction that can be found on Instagram (@adamcetra) and Twitter/X (@adamcetrawrites). Adam is a lifelong resident of Pittsburgh’s Bloomfield neighborhood, where he lives with his wife, Sarah Saba (Pitt Law ’17), their twins Elias and Norah, and their three cats.
On the process of writing this poem, Cetra writes:
I met Jeff Oaks one afternoon 14 years ago. It was, as far as I remember, the only time we ever spoke. I had recently abandoned the journalism track and was figuring out what kind of writer I wanted to be. My fiction class had a requirement to attend an outside workshop, and a friend asked me to come along for one taught by Jeff. I churned out a handful of (mostly bad) poems. It’s a memory I cherish. Poetry was never really my thing, but for those couple hours that afternoon, it felt like it could be.
Many years later, I received this newsletter and, with it, the news that Jeff had died. It took a moment to remember how I knew him, and it sent me on a search for everyone who taught me back then. The news was mostly bad, and I sat with an odd feeling that I can only describe as grief that I wasn't entitled to 13 years post-graduation. I took that feeling and wrote this odd little stream-of-consciousness poem, my first in 14 years. Poetry was never really my thing, but for those couple hours that afternoon, it felt like it could be.
Our judge's comments:
The poem has a ouroboros-like structure, which is how I read the first line (as a coda / return of sorts), in a sequence that unfolds, documenting the recursive, disjointed thoughts that emerge in the aftermath of multiple losses, Jeff’s death being one of them. The writer attempts to make sense of the quotidian, of the clues, of what ephemera and legacies people leave behind after they die, and the grief here is quietly acute; I found it profoundly moving.
Why? is Fibonacci not spelled PHibonacci OR … aPHInity for Spirals*
Phyllis Sigal (BA, Writing 1980)
PH, my golden diPHthong
Spirals, my golden shape
No wonder:
PHi, the golden ratio
Yes wonder!
Roses SunPHlowers Pineapples Pinecones Snails
Galaxies Hurricanes
Mona Lisa’s face
Spirals, spirals,, spirals,,,
In my liPHe
Cord coils on floor
PHido curls in corner
PHiddlehead rises from garden
Spring has sprung its timepiece
Colgate rolled to squeeze
Windspinner in the breeze
Skin of apple peeled ! single swirl per PHruit
Tattoo (to be)
Spirals spiraling with a PHlourish
In the air, on the counter, in the corner
Every
Thing
Spirals
Even my mind when I let it;;;
her. However, nearly 38 years in the newspaper business apparently proved that theory wrong. Sigal credits Pohla Smith's feature writing class during her senior year with leading her back to journalism. Over her long career in journalism, Sigal has served as a reporter, bureau chief, lifestyles editor, and managing editor for the Times Leader in Martins Ferry, Ohio; design editor for the Intelligencer and Wheeling News-Register; and as managing editor for Weelunk, an online magazine based in Wheeling, West Virginia. For 15 years, she was on the board for the James Wright Poetry Festival in Martins Ferry. Since retiring in 2020, she has written stories for InWheeling Magazine and for Oglebay Institute, a nonprofit arts organization; edited copy and publications for The Oglebay Foundation; and designed a history book for a church’s 200th anniversary.A favorite class of mine at Pitt was Intro to Poetry with Kevin Rippin; it was his first class as a teacher’s assistant (And, he was a first-class TA!). We gathered around an L-shaped table in the Cathedral’s basement. Poet extraordinaire Frank Lehner was one of those gathered. (I do think Frank and I were Kevin’s favorites!) Earlier this year, I reconnected with Frank at the Ohio County Public Library in Wheeling. He, his wife Nancy Koerbel, and Kevin—among others—participated in a memorial for poet Tim Russell, hosted by West Virginia Poet Laureate Marc Harshman. I hadn’t seen Frank since Pitt days; we shared what we’ve been doing in the last 44 years. Writing poetry wasn’t on my list. But his encouragement to get back to it, along with a subsequent email about the garbage poem contest, prompted my entry. The poem itself came from a recent revelation: the connection between spirals and the Golden Phi. I’ve always been enamored with spirals . . . jewelry, tattoos, flowers, etc. . . . My name begins with Ph . . . Aha, I thought! No wonder spirals speak to me! I decided to spin that theme into my poem. I loved following the specifications while trying to keep the poem from sounding contrived.
Immediately I’m struck by the playfulness and consistent, focused, serious, and humorous logic that drives this poem; it unearths the idiosyncrasies of the English language and in so doing, assembles and builds its own universe, which felt a kind of mathematics and celebration of life. I think Jeff would have chuckled heartily reading this, as I did, and thinking about all of us laughing warms my heart.