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Poetry Month 2017: Jaime Luis Huenún
TWO POEMS from PORT TRAKL I got off in the fog of Port Trakl, searching for the bar of good fortune to chat about my trip. But everyone stared at the polar stare in their drinks, silent like the sea off a desert island. I went out to roam the red lit streets. Perfumed and bored women, selling their tired bodies. “In Port Trakl poets come to die” they said, smiling in all the languages of the world. I gave them poems I planned to take to my grave as proof of my time on Earth.Read More
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Poetry Month 2016: Anna Akhmatova
The Muse When in the night I await her coming, My life seems stopped. I ask myself: What Are tributes, freedom, or youth compared To this treasured friend holding a flute? Look, she’s coming! She throws off her veil And watches me, steady and long.Read More
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Poetry Month 2016: Rita Brady Kiefer
Staying Power for Anna Akhmatova Even the swallows knew enough to leave, their wings plotting south in a sky sickened by winter. A sea-girl from Petersburg she drove Russian men mad, her song like balalaikas clinging. Even the muse perched on the bar stool beside her longed to be human, seeing her passion for lindens and bone china, her exquisite sex. Once walking to the cabaret she wept for the child she abandoned: I have other women’s dreams to haunt my mirrors.Read More
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Poetry Month 2016: Bei Dao
Mission The priest gets lost in prayer an air shaft leads to another era: escapees climb over the wall panting words evoke the author’s heart trouble breathe deep, deeper grab the locust tree roots that debate the north wind summer has arrived the treetop is an informer murmurs are a reddish sleep stung by a swarm of bees no, a storm readers one by one clamber onto the shore [From The Rose of Time: New and Selected Poems, translated by Eliot Weinberger and Iona Man-Cheong] ~ From the publisher’s Web site: The Rose of Time: New & Selected Poems presents a glowing selection…Read More
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Poetry Month 2016: Lisa Zimmerman
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.Read More
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Poetry Month 2016: Sappho
Yes, Atthis, you may be sure… Even in Sardis Anactoria will think often of us of the life we shared here, when you seemed the Goddess incarnate to her and your singing pleased her best Now among Lydian women she in her turn stands first as the red- fingered moon rising at sunset takes precedence over stars around her; her light spreads equally on the salt sea and fields thick with bloom Delicious dew pours down to freshen roses, delicate thyme and blossoming sweet clover; she wanders aimlessly, thinking of gentle Atthis, her heart hanging heavy with longing in her…Read More
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Poetry Month 2016: Xochiquetzal Candelaria
Sappho Fragments—a line, sometimes eight, one scrap found stuffed in the mouth of a mummified cat. Let’s say we know this as we know the cat once roamed light-footed through a garden of hyacinth and violets, inking between the legs of guests, sheer linen— dressed dancers, lute players. Everyone drunk. In one jump the cat lands on a whitewashed wall between shards of broken glass on a cliff giving way to the sea.Read More
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Poetry Month 2016: Carol Ann Duffy
Talent This is the word tightrope. Now imagine a man, inching across it in the space between our thoughts. He holds our breath. There is no word net. You want him to fall, don’t you? I guessed as much; he teeters but succeeds. The word applause is written all over him. [From Standing Female Nude] ~ From the publisher’s Web site: This outstanding first collection introduced Carol Ann Duffy’s impressive gifts and the broad range of her interests and style. The poems are fresh, skilful, passionate.Read More
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Poetry Month 2016: Aaron Anstett
Ipse Dixit May as well wager which word prettiest— reciprocal? meadow? discrepancy? surgery? accelerant? imbroglio? plumage? hush?—or dispute fabric pattern best paired with mood— houndstooth sorrow, paisley whimsy—as argue up there, where prayers contend and birds skirt the many invisibilities, open source in uncopyrightable sky, through scrambled chatter of unfathomable disaster and celebrity scandal the unknowns that worry over and love us and which the greater pity: that we want or what we want. Call at your convenience to say again how wet earth smells where you live. Describe its fumes and spices.Read More
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Poetry Month 2016: Heather McHugh
After Su Tung P’o On the birth of a son When a child is born, the parents say they hope it’s healthy and intelligent. But as for me— well, vigor and intelligence have wrecked my life. I pray this baby we are seeing walloped, wiped and winningly anointed, turns out dumb as oakum—and more sinister. That way he can crown a tranquil life by being appointed a cabinet minister. [From Eyeshot] ~ From the publisher’s Web site: Heather McHugh’s new book, Eyeshot, is a brooding, visionary work that takes aim at the big questions—those of love and death.Read More
Joseph Hutchison, Colorado Poet Laureate 2014-2018, has published 17 books, including a translation of flash fictions by Mexican author Miguel Lupián, and co-edited two anthologies. He lives in the mountains southwest of Denver, Colorado, the city where he was born. He teaches at the University of Denver's University College, where he currently directs two programs: Arts & Culture and Global Affairs. 
