I’m really proud to have a new poem, “First Job” in Grain Magazine this spring. Grain was the first magazine I submitted my writing to after I went to a teen writers’ retreat and I still remember the very kind feedback I received that assured me I was on the right track.
I’m very grateful to the editors for choosing this poem. “First Job” is about my brief time working for a local funeral home when I was 14. My dad was working there at the time, and I really wanted a job for some now unimaginable reason so it was easy for me to go in with him and work since I couldn’t yet drive. They interviewed and hired me on the spot. It was a surprisingly chill job, mostly just cleaning and serving with the added surprise of there occasionally being a coffin in the room while I was cleaning. I didn’t work there for long, maybe a summer or so before I went back to school and all my extracurriculars. It’s something I still think about and contributed a lot to how I view death and grief. Death is a part of life, not something that should be hidden away or never spoken about. I wanted to write a poem that treats the subject as I would any other–just a part of life.
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Courtney Bates-Hardy 