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Jane Kenyon
I turn on the radio. Wrong.
Let's not have any noise
in this room, except
the sound of a voice reading a poem.
Result Type
- Poem
Feature Date
- November 29, 2020
Reginald Shepherd
You’re walking down the street alone,
absorbed in the anticipation of a lunchtime salad
with that crusty olive bread you like so much,
and suddenly you’re marching in formation
in a crowd, it’s called a regiment.
You seem to be a soldier this time, you learn
to be at war.
Result Type
- Poem
Feature Date
- November 28, 2020
Gaius Valerius Catullus (translated from the Latin by A.J. Woodman)
I left there fired, Licinius,
by so much of your charm and wit
that in my wretched state no food
agreed with me, no sleep at night
would close my eyes, but, uncontrolled
in frenzy, on my bed I tossed
and turned, craving a sight of dawn
to speak and be with you again.
Result Type
- Poem
Feature Date
- November 27, 2020
Choi Seungja (translated from the Korean by Won-Chung Kim & Cathy Park Hong)
Nobody raised me.
I was nothing from the beginning,
sleeping in a rat’s hole,
nibbling on the flea’s liver,
dying absentmindedly, in any old place.
Result Type
- Poem
Feature Date
- November 26, 2020
Samuel Amadon
Having to be so without having to be so, I take my seat at the bar.
It's my manner. I'm willful. Absent. Crisp. And cold. I know
where to point my eyes when speaking, when listening, when
the check arrives. I'm having lunch today because
I'm pretty civilized.
Result Type
- Poem
Feature Date
- November 25, 2020
Barbara Jane Reyes
They will say, your language lacks finesse, your words low. They will form air quotes with their white fingers, say something clever about color. They will corral you into their lowness, as you sully their well-lit high poetic annals. With your darkness.
Result Type
- Poem
Feature Date
- November 24, 2020
Alexander Vvedensky (translated from the Russian by Matvei Yankelevich)
I find it hard to be with minutes,
they have completely confused me.
It really upsets me terribly
that I can be seen in reality.
And then there’s this grudge that I bear,
that I’m not a rug, nor a hydrangea.
Result Type
- Poem
Feature Date
- November 23, 2020
Vvedensky's poems exist, now perhaps more than ever. He never prepared them for publication, never dialoged with an editor, never saw proofs or made corrections. We don't know how much of his writing is final drafts and how much of it was lost; some (including a novel) has definitively vanished. Yet, we're confident this poet lived and wrote these poems, more or less. The instability of this body of work—(re-)constructed by scholars, editors, publishers, and translators—is both context and subtext for the way it makes meaning in its afterlives: in samizdat, in print, and in translation.
Result Type
- What Sparks Poetry
Feature Date
- November 23, 2020
Elana Bell
I don’t know when I noticed the pale
pink shoots sprouting from the submerged
ends: wild, reaching roots, like ginseng, or the hair
on an old woman’s chin. Then tiny green
leaves began to appear at the tips,
curling over themselves with the sheer effort
of growing.
Result Type
- Poem
Feature Date
- November 22, 2020
Yalie Kamara
While sipping coffee in my mother’s Toyota, we hear the birdcall of two teenage boys
in the parking lot: Aiight, one says, Besaydoo, the other returns, as they reach
for each other. Their cupped handshake pops like the first, fat, firecrackers of summer
Result Type
- Poem
Feature Date
- November 21, 2020
