Extraordinary poems: the voice has an immediacy and vivid imagination that pulled me right in. Favorites: "The Cat," "Tritina," "Pesto" & "Self PortraExtraordinary poems: the voice has an immediacy and vivid imagination that pulled me right in. Favorites: "The Cat," "Tritina," "Pesto" & "Self Portrait as Man and Pet."...more
One day, our skins will say / what we wanted from each other. [Deal]
Sometimes I am afraid if I step close / my brother will take me, the way a fox // caOne day, our skins will say / what we wanted from each other. [Deal]
Sometimes I am afraid if I step close / my brother will take me, the way a fox // carries a small crow in his jowls, . . . [Nest]
Cursed first, cocked stink-eyed against / the wall of our mother's pelvis, my brother . . . [Mythology]...more
I wanted to like this more than I did. And yet I could hardly put it down. So there's that.I wanted to like this more than I did. And yet I could hardly put it down. So there's that....more
Edward Jr. panting, beet-faced, running sweat, hay clippings plastered to his jiggly chest & arms shear bar came loose knives flew
by my head heckuva meEdward Jr. panting, beet-faced, running sweat, hay clippings plastered to his jiggly chest & arms shear bar came loose knives flew
by my head heckuva mess out there so of course I let him call his mother to get Billy to come get me & got him a beer ["One Morning"]
. . . a black colt materialized in the front yard/—cropped tail, icicles encrusted on mane, nose & around both eyes—/then lurched hock-deep to stand nodding between porch rail & propane/tanks. He snorted the forsythia canes, bursts of snow glittering as they/floated down. . . ["Prose Ode to the Black Colt"]
My friend said I’m empty, but I love you after I’d asked another question, each one
an ash hovering in the fluorescent penumbra the grow lights cast on the African violets
last watered the night his daughter last left. . . ["Home"]
River Phoenix rocks Laura Palmer, living room rank with teen spirit and Dior Fahrenheit, and I kiss Sean in paisley tatters. . . ["Halloween Party 1991"River Phoenix rocks Laura Palmer, living room rank with teen spirit and Dior Fahrenheit, and I kiss Sean in paisley tatters. . . ["Halloween Party 1991"]
But New Orleans loves its phantoms best. His midnight tours sell out, his talker’s bally: all true, none alike. He eats late at the Clover Grill, a cracked stool sprung in the clamor and hamburger steam, the skittering percussive tourist voodoo. ["Self-Portraits with Reality TV"]
In 2006, the bullets in Oaxaca. His last footage saved on YouTube. ["EVP"]
What chance does memory stand when time turns even stone to dust? ["On the Accrual of Vacation Days"]
I’ve always known what makes a mountain, I’ve benefiWhat chance does memory stand when time turns even stone to dust? ["On the Accrual of Vacation Days"]
I’ve always known what makes a mountain, I’ve benefited from watching one rise slowly, smooth and gray-green at this distance, while Waste Management usurped geological time . . . ["Geological Time"]
Rust is the bust after the boom, . . . ["Always, hopefully, soon"]
Would I had been pollinated like yarrow by a bee and not by this man, grin like a kid at the candy rack . . . ["Itinerants"]
He hasn’t yet slipped his fWould I had been pollinated like yarrow by a bee and not by this man, grin like a kid at the candy rack . . . ["Itinerants"]
He hasn’t yet slipped his fist of quarters into the payphone, weekly call home from whichever truckstop boasts the cheapest gas. ["Eggs"]
. . . I am not my sister’s keeper. I am tired. Gripping my pillow, I resist the itch to rise, lie stiff and let my eyes slip shut. When I wake the sheets are tangled and I am still alone. ["Surrogate"]
. . . It’s mostly breathing and hanging around old haunts. I gently dig my heel into soft earth, do it over and over if the ground won’t give. ["I Kn . . . It’s mostly breathing and hanging around old haunts. I gently dig my heel into soft earth, do it over and over if the ground won’t give. ["I Know How Not to Disappear"]
I wanted to walk across unyielding water, my faith in you ecstatic while I surveyed the rippling shore. ["Pond by an Abandoned Shack"]
Matt doesn’t believe in spirits, almost as if you are not there, moving in shadow. I listened for you until you heard me. ["Overhill"]
Number 12 in Volume 5 of the Seven Kitchens Press Editor's Series.
The endless river pours past. She brings you twilight/damp with rain, mossy and alivNumber 12 in Volume 5 of the Seven Kitchens Press Editor's Series.
The endless river pours past. She brings you twilight/damp with rain, mossy and alive, flowing on—on—now, rise through/your skin, leap into the soft light, the way deer dance across shallows—/legs like lightning, hooves tapping out an untamed language. ["Serenade"]
I know that the charcoal of fires burned on an ancient/hearth lives on inside my teeth. I know how to raise a glass to/hurricanes named after ex-lovers, or the other way around. ["Knowing"]
But just remember this: it was/real. That hatchet of joy sunk into your chest? That opening up of the/sealed tomb? That sliver of connection to your own immaculate/beauty and strength? It was all real, every bit of it. ["Sorrow"]
I first encountered Lux's poems through his collection *Split Horizon*, which contains "The People of the Other Village," a poem I've carried around fI first encountered Lux's poems through his collection *Split Horizon*, which contains "The People of the Other Village," a poem I've carried around for years, quite literally, in a folder, a manila folder of poems I would teach if I ever had the chance to teach again. His wry humor, his acutely specific description, and that singular mix of comedy and tragedy remind me of Vonnegut, or what I remember of Vonnegut. The poems in *The Street of Clocks* feel more quiet overall, inviting the reader into a specific moment or space and then leaving them there without judgment or comment or summation, without any grand positioning or cheap, easy shots. They seem to me more like odes, small gestures that *occupy* their subjects. There's a things-as-they-are placidity that belies the art of focusing so intently. I really love his work....more
I've waited a long time for this book. Kate Fox wields wry humor, fierce intelligence, and a masterful control of detail in these poems, which open anI've waited a long time for this book. Kate Fox wields wry humor, fierce intelligence, and a masterful control of detail in these poems, which open and open again to wonder. ...more
I started reading this book years ago and set it aside, unable to bear the emotions it pulled up in me about my complicated relationship with my own mI started reading this book years ago and set it aside, unable to bear the emotions it pulled up in me about my complicated relationship with my own mother. Well, now I've read it, and it's fucked me up. These poems blaze brilliantly. ...more
Favorite poem in this chapbook: "Black and White in Color," one of several well-wrought sonnets, which opens with the line "In bed, I watch in woozy mFavorite poem in this chapbook: "Black and White in Color," one of several well-wrought sonnets, which opens with the line "In bed, I watch in woozy misery" and concludes with a turn that jabs like a knife and opens the poem so wide I did a little mmmph in admiration....more
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