The Broom Girl
hangs on my
neighbor’s door.

Her paper face
laughs above
her straw skirt,

her yarn hair
tangles
in the wind.

All girls play,
jumping rope
or tying beads.

Not the Broom
Girl.

She doesn’t
mind,

she can watch
the world
from a nail.

She laughs
all the same.

–Matthew Haughton,
Bee-Coursing Box (2011)
Accents Publishing

• An interview with Matthew Haughton (part 1) (part 2) (part 3)
• Matthew Haughton’s submissions for Lexington Poetry Month

Matthew Haughton was born in Colorado in 1977. At an early age, his family returned to eastern Kentucky, where his lineage stretches back over a century in the region. Matthew is a graduate of the University of Kentucky. Most recently, he was a finalist in the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning’s Next Great Writer Competition. His poetry has appeared in literary magazines such as Kentucky Monthly, Still: The Journal, and The Heartland Review. This is his first published collection of poems. He lives and works as an artist and educator in Lexington Kentucky.