This poem is called "Clay". When starting Clay, I went in with an idea that had been sitting in my brain for a while. Living in East Georgia, every time you put a shovel in the ground, you dig up nothing but Georgia Clay. Not even real dirt comes out of the ground, just more and more clay. When I started to think about it, I realized that, living here my whole life, I never really experienced land that allowed whatever it wanted to grow. This ground was so selective, so murderous, and so picky and snobby, just like the people here. It seemed that, moving out of Georgia, I might be able to plant my seeds more readily, as opposed to not being able to plant them at all. I wanted to bring that feel of such local rejection to this poem. I wanted to convey the feeling that anywhere else was better than here.