Sound Bites, Issue 12: Geneva Webber

About our author:

Geneva Webber is a fourth-year creative and professional writing major with minors in political science and gender studies. She is the founder of Sound Bites, a former poetry editor for The Insider, and the current co-editor for Pendulum. Webber has also been awarded the Ida B. Wells Journalism Prize and has been previously published in the international magazine As It Ought to Be.

She has lived in Pittsburgh, Chicago, and small-town Michigan, and writes about family, nature, and work.

Three Poems by Geneva Webber

For Shiyi, Who Buys Things Online

Shiyi gets mail every day

I know because I give it to her

and because Liv and Ali tell me

when they give it to her.

I tell Shiyi someone must

love her very much

and she giggles, looking guilty

and says yes.

Eulogy for An Opossum

Your body lies

on the shoulder of Mt. Pleasant, 

before the three stop lights

and the expressway.

No one has to swerve around you anymore.

I’ve been meaning to write this for months

since you died:

something about death, and being forgotten

what it means to fade into the pavement

but friend,

I think about you every day on my way to school.

Even after all this time,

a crow drifts down from the treeline

to pick away at your fur.

Tufts of you will line a twiggy nest until

spring, until

warmth, until

life

starts again.

Second Eulogy for An Opossum

They’ve scraped your body from the street.

Forgive me for writing

with such insensitivity; it’s just

you’re gone.

About our column:

Sound Bites is a poetry column intended to be read, heard, and tasted. It is finger food, messy and hands-on, compacting all the sweetest bits of a writer into a few small moments. The column will accept student writing submissions in the form of poetry or short prose for every issue from any and all majors, ages, and backgrounds.

Submissions can be emailed directly to Poetry Columnist Jamie Harrover at jeh275@pitt.edu. Parameters for submissions are as follows:

Please attach a Word (.docx) document of your piece(s) with a maximum of 750 words each

Include a short but personal bio about yourself with a maximum of 200 words

Specify your preferred name and pronouns

Please email me a cover photo of yourself— professional or not.

If you submit multiple pieces, please give them a group title of your choosing (i.e. “Three Poems by Lindsey Kutz”)

Be prepared for follow-up questions 🙂