FEATURE
National Poetry Month: JACKET COPY FOR ‘A YELLOW PENCIL IN MIDAIR KEPT SKETCHING’ by Adam Atkinson
Jacket Copy for 'A Yellow Pencil in Midair Kept Sketching' by Adam Atkinson Things are either metaphors or not in these poems. "Three ghosts pin / the tail on the reader." Ghost or literal ghost? Literate ghosts know these poems by heart: I Must Live Forever;...
National Poetry Month: THE SHAPE OF IT by Wendy Xu
The Shape of It by Wendy Xu I wake up and inherit the world as anybody has left it. Perhaps later, some windowless thinking. A red goat stares at me from the kitchen table, his confident black eyes moving in slow passes across my face. It goes on like this. I...
National Poetry Month: EXO-SECRETARAIT by Blake Lee Pate
Exo-Secretariat by Blake Lee Pate Exo-girl convinced the boss her girls are hot, have skirts, nice handwriting. 8:00 a.m. We're period plagued and auto-receiving at our desks splitting our hair ends & running our stock- ings up & down the halls. WE DO...
National Poetry Month: ANTERIOR OF A RAZED ROOM by Cori A. Winrock
Anterior of a Razed Room by Cori A. Winrock What corseting—: the room cinched in as the wrecking drill bores down, its metal threaded vertebrae spiraling slow through our plaster and horsehair insulation, the seven-layer wallpapers caked over and over...
National Poetry Month: THE SEISMOLOGIST’S TALE by Jessica Bozek
The Seismologist's Tale by Jessica Bozek It was fall and the soldier’s stories made human piles of the citizens. He went directly to the center of the town and his stories spiraled outward. The few who tried to flee were held by his soothing voice. The citizens...
National Poetry Month: LIGHT AWAY NOW by Matt Cozart
Light Away Now by Matt Cozart What to find: a little well sped up attention eye. It’s an audition I’m moving slower than. Don’t keep your hands in your hands, I wouldn’t want to be ended at them. Beginning home seems swept into some already over. No late look...
National Poetry Month: ON DANCING by Elizabeth Robinson
On Dancing by Elizabeth Robinson Like a flavor draining down one’s throat, the exudates of sound and waltz. God said dancing was no elixir and was befouled with its own suspicions until the angel reclaimed its message, having traveled through you,...
National Poetry Month: THREE UNTITLED POEMS by Graham Foust
Three Untitled Poems by Graham Foust Inaccuracy’s inevitable, and even sleep is gestural. A black oval props open my mouth. * Bundled up and descending a subway staircase, the day done without, another gash in whatever time I might have left to agree with gravity, I...
National Poetry Month: WE ARE WHERE WE TREMBLE by Kimberly Burwick
We Are Where We Tremble by Kimberly Burwick In the lean fraction of distance between back barn and the godfather moan of wind, dry volleying of ruddy starlings and the forthright chord that is both creek and birds of screech, is the pattern by which we come up from...
National Poetry Month: CASTING OUT THE KING OF BOYS by Zachary Schomburg
Casting Out the King of Boys by Zachary Schomburg On my last day as king, I watched a dirty movie behind the couch. My father said I should get used to that sort of thing. I ate every last possible meal in the refrigerator. Those were great memories from...