Barbara Cully, PSP faculty member (1997, 2003, and 2006)
BCully poem 12 pt _MYNA SAYS_ 2018.docxThe Prague Summer Program had the effect on me it was designed to have on any faculty member or student, but perhaps especially a native Southern Californian: It welcomed me to all the strata of the Old World—art, architecture, politics, war, food—everything we consider “culture,” and thereby changed my perspective on, and practice of, poetry.
I wrote “Myna Says” while listening to The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert. I worked some of the information from the book into my composition, blending that with ideas I’ve absorbed from a life-long study of both anthropology and cosmology. The impetus for the poem is the fact that we live in a profoundly scary time, which brings about both darkness and humor.