The Exiled Poet Reads to a Mostly
Middle Class White Audience
The white page is pure amnesia.
—Bei Dao
When the Chinese poet
read his poems in his original tongue
symbols turned in his mouth
dissolved into words, little
singing sounds
flew around his face
like papery moths saved
from a burning decade
and into the audience
small black brooms swept
between two centuries
a child’s hands
letting go a few, a hundred,
numberless silk stars.
[From How the Garden Looks from Here]
~
From the publisher’s Web site:
Lisa Zimmerman received her M.F.A. from Washington University in St. Louis. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in the Colorado Review, Redbook, The Sun, River Styx, Poet Lore, and Indiana Review, among other journals. Her poetry has been nominated three times, most recently in 2009, for the Pushcart Prize. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks as well as the book How the Garden Looks From Here, winner of the 2004 Violet Reed Haas Poetry Award. Her most recent collection The Light at the Edge of Everything was published in 2008 by Anhinga Press. She is an assistant professor of English at the University of Northern Colorado.
So nice to read Lisa here! As always, she has such fine images. I am loving this month of other poets, some of whom I did not know before–so fun to meet new poets this way. Thank you!
Thank you, Joe, for honoring me on your blog.
(note: singing sounds / flew around his face)