The Patternmakers

Author(s): Rina Ferrarelli

Source: College English, Vol. 59, No. 3 (Mar., 1997), p. 323
Published by: National Council of Teachers of English
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/378382 .
Accessed: 02/01/2015 11:06

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

National Council of Teachers of English is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
College English.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Fri, 2 Jan 2015 11:06:21 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 POEMS 323

THE PATTERNMAKERS
I was at someone else's house,
and my English wasn't too good.
I didn't want to argue with the women
who felt I should use a pattern,
regardless, that anything but
Butterick, Vogue, or Simplicity
was shoddy, makeshift. I had,
and the skirt and zipper were too long,
the darts fell in the wrong places-
the ethnic types of five continents
were supposed to fit into this pattern,
modeled on someone four inches taller,
and flat in front and flat in back.
Like on a map, no rush-hour traffic
merging right and left. And no signs
of closed bridges, one-way streets,
angles, sharp on paper, that loop over
and under and around. Besides,
I knew another way. I had seen
seamstresses and tailors
take the measures off the living model
and mark them straight onto the cloth,
inventing a pattern, or changing
as they worked the one they'd learned.

Rina Ferrarelli

*"Afterlives"and "The Patternmakers"@ Rina Ferrarelli.

Franco Pagnucci has published poetry and nonfiction in such periodicals as the ChristianScienceMon-
itor,Commonweal,and MidwestQuarterly.His recent books include New RoadsOld Towns,Out Harmsen's
Way,and I Never Had a Pet. He is a professor of English in the Humanities Department of the Univer-
sity of Wisconsin-Platteville. Rina Ferrarelli came from Italy at the age of fifteen. She has published a
chapbook, Dreamsearch(Malafemmina Press, 1992), and a full-length book of original poems, Home Is
a ForeignCountry(Eadmer Press, 1996); her translation Light withoutMotion received the Italo Calvino
Prize. Her work has also appeared in many journals and anthologies, including AmericanSportsPoems
(Orchard Books, 1988), Artful Dodge, Chelsea,HudsonReview, and InternationalQuarterly.She teaches
English and translation theory at the University of Pittsburgh.

This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Fri, 2 Jan 2015 11:06:21 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions