Ends
mishearing “A”-24 [“And it is possible in imagination…”]
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“Ends” from E by Noa Micaela Fields.
Published by Nightboat Books on January 11, 2026.
Copyright © 2026 by Noa Micaela Fields.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
An earlier version of this poem was first published in Tyger Quarterly
Like a game of telephone gone haywire, these mischievous mishearings and homophonic translations remix a classic of 20th Century American poetry.
C’mon, take the E pill (is it estrogen? ecstasy? something else entirely?). E practices mishearing as a bodily reworking of language alongside the poet’s hormonal transition, stretching the upper limits of homophonic translation to unleash the unexpected queer resonances of Louis Zukofsky’s “A.” E alchemizes mishearing into a political possibility of glitching, noncompliance, and protest. Not a translation, but maximally trans, mishearing transmutes language to generate new possibilities: how hormones change the body; how relationships evolve, multiply, and implode over time.
"In E, poetry is both reverent and irreverent, entangled with the act of living itself; for Noa Micaela Fields, mishearings are sacred couriers, delivering mystical flashes of knowledge, like the chemically fueled self-revelations produced by tiny blue pills." - Riley Yaxley, Chicago Reader
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