poetry
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Disorientation, Disgust, and Killing flies
Michael Dickman’s poems inhabit a place in which “morning makes its way up the street as a loose pack of wild dogs” and we find ourselves—through his sharp pronoun use—feeling complicit in acts of violence that are committed in a…
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National Poetry Month, Day 22: “Long (dragon)” by Peggy Hamilton
Long (dragon) Once skin teaches you body’s not to feel with it grows to solve other problems fires get tired of burning every bed they’ve been in down ashes look so soft but you would never spend the night anyhow
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National Poetry Month, Day 21: “Eat the Sinew’s Disbelief” by Amy King
Eat the Sinew’s Disbelief You will never be great, no shirt, no shoes, no servitude. Just a regular Joe, Josephine who walks around, has thoughts, and makes way for Whitman. You’re John the Baptist, a footnote, not your own story.
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There’s Coffee On My Shirt, Not Blood
Seemingly masked in the two words of the title (Ghost this, Machine that), Ben Mirov has written an intimate, if cryptic, book of poetry.
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National Poetry Month, Day 20: “Not light’s version” by Michael Klein
Not light’s version A child from the past: We always knew the world would crack open like this, in our lifetime.
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National Poetry Month, Day 19: “Deer between fallen branches” by Ely Shipley
Deer between fallen branches Snow fills the eyes of the winter animal. She’s like a photograph of himself as a child, feet dangling over the side of a boat, skimming
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National Poetry Month, Day 18: “Transparent to Visible Light” by Samiya Bashir
Transparent to Visible Light Across the seas, and then across the seas, an aircraft carried full and whole a world: as far apart as their fair hostess could achieve sat mother and father and their little girl who sucked a…
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National Poetry Month, Day 17: “Ode to Government Cheese” by Oscar Bermeo
Ode to Government Cheese The streets are alive with your radioactive smile, your distinct glow, not quite pumpkin, not quite squash, not quite orange; no, not anything organic.
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National Poetry Month, Day 16: “Missed Connection” by Kelli Russell Agodon
Missed Connection You: Bartender at the left wing bar, sleeves rolled up, preaching happiness, Fredrich Nietzsche. Small scar across your chin. We high-fived, nodded about get-out-the-vote rallies, about Gore, Clinton, and Obama.
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His Forked Voice Licked My Mortal Ears Clean
In The Flight Cage, Rebecca Dunham adopts and manipulates the personas of historical, usually literary, women to explore the various confinements and resistances that they—and by extension, all women—endure.
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National Poetry Month, Day 15: “Persona Ficta” by Jena Osman
Jena Osman’s The Network was the Rumpus Poetry Book Club selection for November, 2010. You can read Brian Spears’s essay on why he chose the book here and the Rumpus Poetry Book Club Chat with Osman here Persona Ficta a…
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National Poetry Month, Day 14: “The Lion’s Mouth” by Randall Mann
The Lion’s Mouth I walk into a stanza. There’s decent gin here; the men are critically tanned in winter. The gin kicks in;