PEN Poetry Series
Through 2019, the PEN Poetry Series published work by writers from all over the world.
Selfie in a Pixelated Mirror
Not too many jokes, and even worse, / the ones that do come up won’t be so funny, more like / saltines, welcome when there’s nothing else around. /… More
Four Poems by Seungja Choi
Mother, I am darkness. / Since the morning of the old / when Adam and Eve rose from grass, / I have been the long body’s sorrow. // Children… More
Two Poems by Jericho Brown
I was smaller then / One road went through me / No airport / I drove him home / There had been a wreck / On the interstate /… More
Five Poems by Juan-Carlos Galeano
The fishermen who scale and gut their catch / discover a river in the bellies of the fish. // In the river shines a sandbar where some boys play… More
from The Pirate Who Does Not Know the Value of Pi
The pirate is the child of the man. The child of the man tells a tale. The tale entails counting. Counting relies on natural numbers. Natural numbers do not… More
Not the Wedding Poem
It's hard to tell / whether the crash survivable memory units / recovered from the black box chilling / at the bottom of the sea are the tonic /… More
Three Poems by Mark Levine
But I was about to say / When Chance came and cut me down with his Wehrmacht / That I was present on the assembly floor / And accountable… More
Number Six of the Eleven Calamities
Someone would ask me how I was and I would promptly answer “prose.” You’d look down at the inscription I’d written and somehow it would only say “prose.” Prose… More
from On Paradise
Everything in and of war in war. / Every flight and branch and wing, / A body of war: a woman brushing a boy’s hair— / War—the wild turkey… More
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