Jennifer James LeRoy hails from a military family and has lived throughout the U.S., as well as in Panama and Germany. She wrote her first short story at the age of four and five years later won her first writing contest. While attending the Fairfax County Public Schools in Northern Virginia, her poems, short stories, and essays received numerous prestigious honors. In addition to publishing in Virginia Writing, her work was recognized by the Virginia High School League (Superior rating and Medalist, poetry), the National Council of Teachers of English (Outstanding Writing Award), and Word Works (Younger Poets Award). Her multi-genre portfolio was selected out of more than 1500 portfolio applicants as one of five Scholarship winners in the National Scholastic writing competition for which she was invited to read her work at the Library of Congress. Out of over 16,000 entries, she received National Scholastic Gold and Silver medals for the essay and poetry categories. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Arizona with a degree in Creative Writing, winning honors for essay and poetry and the Fred M. Scott award for fiction. Shortly after graduation, she was diagnosed with an untreatable connective tissue disorder that threatened to cut short her promising career. Though it severely restricts her life activities, she fights daily against the pain and limitations of her illness to pursue her passion. She lives with her husband in Tucson and is working on her first chapbook. The poem “Before Curtain Call,” featured below, was written by Ms. LeRoy when she was 17. This piece appeared in The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards 1997 program to highlight this talented writer’s accomplishment as a National Writing Portfolio winner. The other four poems represent Ms. LeRoy’s more recent work.

Before Curtain Call

Mary Todd Lincoln was committed to an asylum by her son, Robert,

after her emotional breakdown following the death of her three sons

and husband.

Asylum gardens dressed for a funeral, fountains pour red wine gushing from that hole

            in the back of your head

Framed, by the bars of my window, like steel train tracks dividing a nightmare

            My, my, wasn’t John quite the hero—such a brave little puppet with a gun,

                        watch how he grew when he aimed

You slumped, not a President, but a stable boy,

            a pile of skin in the balcony

                        I watched you fall

through time and space and ranks of honor,

            but I couldn’t catch you, stop you from being mortal

With your boys now, our boys, William, Tadd, Todd

                                    like a perfect barber shop quartet

                        side by side by side by wicked side

Rob’s finally committed to something—me,

                        in here,

just tossed his mother in this looney barrel to roll around and claw to get out

            But I’m not like them, I’m a lady, I have status, I have respect,

I have nothing

In the East Room you gave up, succumbed to your selfish body

Gone like that—

and we didn’t even finish the play

            So now I wander the halls and gardens and fountains

everything you

            everything them

                        everything that cursed paper clip man with a pistol

What’s left for me, what choice do I have,

            but to gather my skirts like a lady and leave before curtain call

One chair exists in this house.
Four legs, two arms, a hybrid of domestic pet and lover.
How the chair wishes there was another,
so they could lose themselves
in each other’s wood swirls,
get sauced on varnish,
spend the night chasing the other around the table,
then fall panting to the floor, whisper secrets
to the tiles, ponder the contents of their cushions.

Nothing is more lonely than a single chair,
sitting at attention against the wall,
a disciplined schoolboy the teacher forgot,
a death device craving a sinner to shock with devotion,
a piece of furniture once touched in creation
that will forever be waiting
for another hand or breath
to enter the room, give it purpose again.
 

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