poetry

FIVE HUNDRED AND FORTY

Late Fragment by Raymond Carver. And did you get whatyou wanted from this life, even so?I did.And what did you want?To call myself beloved, to feel myselfbeloved on the earth.

First, from the biography of David Hills: “Philosophy is the ungainly attempt to tackle questions that come naturally to children, using methods that come naturally to lawyers.” Second, from Novalis, via Patti Smith: “Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason.” Third, from Hera Lindsay Bird’s Speech time: Poetry is a luxury behaviour Like crying becauseContinue reading “FIVE HUNDRED AND THIRTY NINE”

FIVE HUNDRED AND THIRTY EIGHT

Empire of Dreams by Charles Simic, via Pome. On the first page of my dreambook It’s always evening In an occupied country. Hour before the curfew. A small provincial city. The houses all dark. The storefronts gutted. I am on a street corner Where I shouldn’t be. Alone and coatless I have gone out toContinue reading “FIVE HUNDRED AND THIRTY EIGHT”

FIVE HUNDRED AND THIRTY FIVE

Good Bones by Maggie Smith via the Poetry Foundation. Life is short, though I keep this from my children. Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways, a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative estimate,Continue reading “FIVE HUNDRED AND THIRTY FIVE”

FIVE HUNDRED AND THIRTY ONE

John Berryman’s Dream Song 14, via Laura Olin. Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so. After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns, we ourselves flash and yearn,and moreover my mother told me as a boy (repeatingly) ‘Ever to confess you’re bored means you have no Inner Resources.’ I conclude now I have no inner resources, becauseContinue reading “FIVE HUNDRED AND THIRTY ONE”

FIVE HUNDRED AND TWENTY SEVEN

Thanks, by W.S. Merwin. Listen with the night falling we are saying thank you we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings we are running out of the glass rooms with our mouths full of food to look at the sky and say thank you we are standing by the water thanking it standing by the windows looking out inContinue reading “FIVE HUNDRED AND TWENTY SEVEN”

FIVE HUNDRED AND TWENTY ONE

“We Lived Happily during the War” by Ilya Kaminsky, via Poetry Unbound and the Poetry Foundation. And when they bombed other people’s houses, we protestedbut not enough, we opposed them but not enough. I wasin my bed, around my bed America was falling: invisible house by invisible house by invisible house. I took a chairContinue reading “FIVE HUNDRED AND TWENTY ONE”

FIVE HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN

Excerpt from Sanctuary by Donika Kelly. The ocean, I mean, not a woman, filledwith plastic lace, and closer to the vanishingpoint, something brown breaks the surface—human, maybe, a hand or foot or an islandof trash—but no, it’s just a garden of kelp.A wild life. This is a prayer like the seaurchin is a prayer, likeContinue reading “FIVE HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN”

FIVE HUNDRED AND SIX

“Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale,” by Dan Albergotti (via Matthew Ogle’s incredible newsletter, Pome). Somehow exactly right for this particular moment. Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale Measure the walls. Count the ribs. Notch the long days.Look up for blue sky through the spout. Make small fireswith theContinue reading “FIVE HUNDRED AND SIX”

FOUR HUNDRED AND EIGHTY FOUR

From RM Vaughan’s interview with Paul Vermeersch about Self Defence for the Brave and Happy. RM Vaughan: The book moves effortlessly between prophetic pronouncements and intimate, personal observations. Is it a goal of the book to conflate the two in order to make the reader more keenly aware that we live in prophetic times? PaulContinue reading “FOUR HUNDRED AND EIGHTY FOUR”

FOUR HUNDRED AND EIGHTY THREE

Robert Hass, via Pome. We asked the captain what course of action he proposed to take toward a beast so large, terrifying, and unpredictable. He hesitated to answer, and then said judiciously: “I think I shall praise it.”

FOUR HUNDRED AND EIGHTY TWO

From David Whyte (audio here). “We tend to think of vulnerability as a kind of weakness, something to be walked around. But it’s interesting to look at the origin of the word, from the Latin word “vulneras,” meaning “wound.” It’s really the place where you’re open to the world, whether you want to be orContinue reading “FOUR HUNDRED AND EIGHTY TWO”

FOUR HUNDRED AND SEVENTY EIGHT

From If They Should Come for Us, by Fatimah Asghar. my people I follow you like constellations we hear the glass smashing the street & the nights opening their dark our names this country’s wood for the fire my people my people the long years we’ve survived the long years yet to come I seeContinue reading “FOUR HUNDRED AND SEVENTY EIGHT”

FOUR HUNDRED AND SIXTY FOUR

From ruby onyinyechi amanze via Wayétu Moore in the Paris Review. She also has a beautiful artist’s statement.

FOUR HUNDRED AND SIXTY

By Billy-Ray Belcourt (2017), via Matthew Ogle’s Pome. Towards a Theory of Decolonization 1. forget everything you’ve learned about love. 2. investment is the social practice whereby one risks losing it all to be part of something that feels like release. lose everything with me. 3. indian time is a form of time travel. aContinue reading “FOUR HUNDRED AND SIXTY”