Daisy Bassen

Daisy Bassen is a poet and practising physician who graduated from Princeton University’s Creative Writing Program and completed her medical training at The University of Rochester and Brown. Her work has been published in Oberon, McSweeney’s, and [PANK] among other journals. She was the winner of the So to Speak 2019 Poetry Contest, the 2019 ILDS White Mice Contest and the 2020 Beullah Rose Poetry Prize. She was doubly nominated for the 2019 Best of the Net Anthology and for a 2019 and 2020 Pushcart Prize. She lives in Rhode Island with her family.

Recognition


You want so much
To be psychotic;
I understand the relief
You’d find, the quenching
Of a thirst with water
So cold, so sweet.
Someone’s been talking
To you for years, a call
No one else ever answers.
It’s annoying, company
When you’d rather be alone.
You’re never by yourself.
I said your brain was an orchid,
Rare, Amazonian, eager
For water and piranhas,
In need of designation,
An expert in horticulture.
You didn’t care for it
But occasionally, I can admit,
I am speaking for myself.
I’d love to have such a garden,
To feel the blossoms follow me,
That bees would land on my hands
As if I were a saint or a comrade,
Painting me gold;
The fragrance in the air
Chanel, Joy, the Fracas
My father despised, my mother
Wore to provoke. An orchid
Is not my favorite flower.
I prefer peonies, their petticoats
Dragging, Elizabeth Bennett
Walking three miles
To get to Jane.