The shortcut proved the long way round. Mid-summer,Insomniac sun. She ambled through the market.Throngs pressed the flesh. Is this salmon firm and fresh?These strawberries plump and sweet, as ripe as June?Crubeens and chickens, carrageen moss and peas.The price went up according to the depthOf hunger in a voice. “Cheap flowers,””cheap flowers,”—from “Barter,” . . .
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Up out of the trailer, the apartment in Harlem, the estate of the estranged circus stars— All lit true by . . .
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Road-kill seasonand the borrowed breathof woodland on the vergeis the easiest exit for whateverafterlife was promised.Velvet & quiver.—from “Jersey Bruiser,” Summer 2018 (Vol. 59, Issue 2) Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.When I was seven, I wrote a book about the end of the world. There were potato-headed . . .
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“The river was collecting snow on itself. Almost nobody was coming to see it. Its banks were either slick and muddy, or frozen and rutted. The river was letting itself go. Here and there it was jammed with branches that trapped chunks of ice from the current, and plastic jugs and scraps . . .
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Photo caption: Jonathan, age 7, having just finished his first poem But she was never coming through the snow.The cottontail’s earth door gapesAnd in its coldThroatHer kitten waits. —From “Origins of Poetry ” Summer 2018 (Volume 59, Issue 2) Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.I’ve been writing poems, . . .
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It’s almost four o’clock and the hour hand quivers. They told Mr. Ignazio Coppola to sit here and be a good boy now, and wait. And Mr. Ignazio sits waiting sedately as he was told to, his back straight and his hands spread on his knees. Every now and then he looks . . .
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It’s almost four o’clock and the hour hand quivers. They told Mr. Ignazio Coppola to sit here and be a good boy now, and wait. And Mr. Ignazio sits waiting sedately as he was told to, his back straight and his hands spread on his knees. Every now and then he looks . . .
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“After a heated debate about the natureof inspiration (poetry versus prose),with you arguing that idea begets word,and not vice versa, as I believe is the case with verse (always the music first),which was prompted by a discussionof Dickinson’s envelope poems,and whether she wrote the poem”—from “Sixth Year: Iron,” Summer 2018 (Vol. 59, . . .
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“Trees on the bluff, its layered limestone and the plants grown into rockface, down to the river road and in across two pontoons and the water you stand in. Try to make the image wash you out. You take on the sun’s halo,” —from . . .
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“We came to help reforest the land, but as we walk through the bukhara, the local name for our patch of wasteland, we pack rocks into the parched soil with each step. Even the cactuses growing here are a miracle. When we come across a scorched circle of ash, I am alarmed, but . . .
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