On Imposter Syndrome by Melissa Fite-Johnson
by Traci Brimhall, Poet Laureate of Kansas
Hi, I’m Traci Brimhall, Poet Laureate of Kansas, here for Poets on the Plains. Today, I’m delighted to explore a poem by a favorite Kansas poet of mine Melissa Fite Johnson.
Melissa is the author of three full length collections of poetry, most recently Midlife Abecedarian, which was published by Riot in Your Throat Press in 2024. I want to make sure I say that in the abecedarian is a type of poem that uses the alphabet on the left side of the poems. So, the first line begins with A, the second line begins with a word that starts with B, and so on. It’s one of the most delightful forms of poetry and really helps you obsess over your dictionary. Melissa’s poems have also appeared in really wonderful publications like Ploughshares, Pleiades and Whale Road Review. She teaches in a high school in Lawrence Kansas, where she and her husband live with her dogs—who will appear in this next poem.
The poem of hers that I want to share is “Imposter Syndrome”—a feeling I think many people are familiar with—and yet what we encounter in the poem is not expected at all.
Imposter Syndrome
I wonder if birds have dreams, if any bird
is famous, if birds have to remind themselves
flying is what matters, no show-off
loop-de-loops, no need to be the one
framed in the binoculars’ glass.
Open the window, birds call and answer.
Beyond the window, the wetlands
where my husband and I walk our dogs.
Some days I force the view—blue sky
and blue marsh and blue birds. But it’s beautiful
even in winter, better the waterfowl
than the hawk. We follow the snow,
no sense of time—we are 29, we are nine,
we are 80 lying down to die. A memory
before it happens, it is the tunnel and it is the light.
I really love that poem. Some of the things that I love about it are the first questions about whether birds have dreams, but also if a bird can be famous–if there is a best singer on the powerline. And then thinking about how birds might think how they might organize their values, and knowing that flying matters, not the showing off and that you don’t need to be in the binoculars glass.
Then this poem does something that I always love and appreciate when a poem does–when it goes from two dimensions–two beautiful dimensions–to three. All of a sudden the poem opens really wide for me when the poem says, “open the window.” It could be the speaker in the poem, talking to themselves, but I feel called to open the window, to listen to the birds calling and answering.
Then the poem is already stretched in this new way, but then Melissa takes us beyond the window to the wetlands. We go from this wondering, which is an action of the mind–perhaps staring out looking at these birds, asking if they’re famous–to what’s beyond the window in the wetlands where the speaker and their husband walk the dogs. So now we’re getting some real, physical and literal, something that is daily and domestic after thinking about whether or not birds like to show off. It is beautiful, and I love quotidian beauty, even when she says in the poem “some days, I force the view–blue sky and blue marsh and blue birds.” Traci Brimhall
Of course, there’s something repetitive in using blue so much, but also doing the same walk over and over and over again. But to know a place is to know its seasons, to be so familiar with everything in that marsh and everything about that walk that you can truly appreciate subtleties and not always need novelty. The daily can also hold so much beauty and even variation.
We do also get a specific season–a reference to winter and snow–when we hear about the wandering that she and her husband do every day. I talked earlier about how the poem went from this intellectual wondering about birds and expanded out to this physical place in this routine, but then we are transported through time as this couple and their dogs walk in the snow–They are 29. They are nine. They are 80 lying down to die. I love how this routine becomes the important memory for this person and that this routine, this habit, transports them through all of the times of their life–it is the tunnel that they’re walking through. It is also the light at the end they hope to see–this beautiful route walked with their beloved, with their dogs, studying the birds in the sky.
Thank you for being with us for Poets on the Plains. I’m Traci Brimhall, Poet Laureate of Kansas coming to you from Manhattan, Kansas, “the Little Apple.”
Imposter Syndrome used with permission.
POETS ON THE PLAINS HOST
Traci Brimhall is the current Poet Laureate of Kansas. She's an avid reader of many genres, but her latest obsession has been reading retellings of Greek myths by authors like Natalie Haynes and Jennifer Saint. Those books help her talk to her 10-year-old son about myths, monsters, and demigods while he reads Percy Jackson. She's a professor of creative writing at Kansas State University and lives in Manhattan, KS.
https://tracibrimhallpoet.com/ . Her books can be ordered at https://tracibrimhallpoet.com/works/ .
FEATURED POET:
Melissa Fite Johnson is the author of three full-length collections, most recently Midlife Abecedarian (Riot in Your Throat, 2024). Her poems have appeared in Ploughshares, Pleiades, HAD, Whale Road Review, SWWIM, and elsewhere. Melissa, a high school English teacher, is a poetry editor for The Weight, a journal for high school students, and Porcupine Lit, a journal for and by teachers. She and her husband live with their dogs in Lawrence, KS, where she co-hosts the Volta reading series at the Replay Lounge. Connect with her on Instagram and X/Twitter. Or email her at melissafitejohnson@gmail.com (https://melissafitejohnson.com/)
