There is nothing sentimentalin this forest. A squall, birchboughs sibilant. Some hearthupwind glut with wet wood.You, taken with a fine polish,should have wed the womanyou would have loved: nothingin this forest. Sentimental,I dwelt once beneath a linden treesprung up between leaves of mica,scaffolds, lanes of passing traffic.Its redolence stifling and flawless,conditional. I do not miss it.Torn from a tangled understoryunderfoot, a scud of clubmossspores blown burns rapid, right.
Infinitive
Joan Naviyuk Kane
Feature Date
- February 1, 2025
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“Infinitive” from EX MACHINA: by Joan Naviyuk Kane.
Published by Staircase Books on June 7, 2023.
Copyright © 2023 by Joan Naviyuk Kane.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
“‘What could not be vulnerable in such changing / light?’ asks Joan Naviyuk Kane's impeccable chapbook Ex Machina. The poems here are unsentimental and unsparing; they tell stories of theft, erosion, and silencing, and they detail the depths of connection across time and space and the wish ‘for the sorrow to become something islandic.’ These new poems of brutal insight and electric lexicon further cement Kane's status as one of the most important poets writing today.”
— Natalie Shapero
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