Here is a throwback piece from Elan’s 1999 Spring Issue, by its then Editor-in-Chief Billy Merrell. Since graduating from Douglas Anderson, Merrell published his first book Talking in the Dark, a poetry memoir, with Scholastic in 2003. He also co-edited The Full Spectrum: A New Generation of Writing About Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, and Other Identities for Knopf Books for Young Readers with David Levithan. It was released in 2006 and won the 2007 Lammy in the Children's/Young Adult category. Merrell has been a frequent guest writer at the bi-annual Douglas Anderson Writers' Festival.
Quickening - Billy Merrell
I felt it push inside
the poetry
I read it, but didn’t
dream it, and now
there… Oh! a push
from the inside, and words are in me
pregnant of language
kicking with the verse
and verbiage, but Oh!
And I love that feeling
being a father a mother
giving life.
They told me
“It will come in time,”
But when I dreamt it
it was ugly
the rain came angry
and the process married
only hours of cold sweat
and in the end, a still born…
but don’t worry,
that was only a dream
I am here still
with a child inside me
waiting to be born,
I have found clothes, fitting
prepared the nursery and now,
am only waiting
for the inspiration, the night
and the child, unborn and breathing my
breaths.