Manifesto: 1942
Because we hate you, you and your reasonableness, we stick to our / precocious dementia, our flaming folly, our stubborn cannibalism.... More
In the Presence of Absence
Love, like meaning, is out on the open road, but like poetry, it is difficult. It requires talent, endurance, and skillful formulation, because of its many stations. It is… More
A Farewell to Guest Poetry Editor Ben Mirov
This month, the PEN Poetry Series bids a fond and heavy-hearted farewell to Ben Mirov, one of the founding guest editors of our poetry series, along with Ana Božičević &… More
Poems from Light, Grass, and Letter in April
To go into the mountain and it is you / To go farther in and it is not certain / To go still farther in / and there is… More
The Big Smoke: Five Poems
That horse back-kicked so hard / my leg bone broke, split skin // like a lazy plum. I layed back / in that stall bleeding & hollering // in… More
A Tuareg Leaves Timbuktu
The first thing you must do / when word of the rebel army’s advance / reaches your mud-brick home / is surrender your hope / to see the Great… More
in field latin
one evening / they came the dead of my house / back from the train-station. it was december & // their next train did not leave till march More
“My Grave” and “Ripeness”
Every day I watch my grave in the yard / included in the price of the house, / with a board over the hole, / with a tombstone of… More
from “Muse & Drudge,” “Trimmings”
Swan neck, white shoulders, lumps of fat. A woman's face/above it all. Unriddled sphinx 'without secrets.' Alabaster/bust, paled into significance. Clothes opening, revealing/dress, as French comes into English. Suggestively,… More
Four Last Songs
I’d forgotten to pay attention for years / To a song I heard for the first time // At the end of a recent memorial, / An actual song… More