Poetry by Ilya Kaminsky, Katherine Fallon, and Robert Hayden; fiction by Amy Hempel; and an essay by James Marcus

~
Inhabitant of earth for fortysomething years 
I once found myself in a peaceful country. . . .  
--From "In a Time of Peace," a poem by Ilya Kaminsky, The New Yorker (February 18 & 25, 2019), pp. 64-65.  "In a Time of Peace"was included in his 2019 collection, Deaf Republic (Graywolf Press).

Milk bones.  Cat food.  Someone else's grandmother's 
stewed tomatoes.  Chocolate covered this, that.
--From "Choke," a poem by Katherine Fallon, which appears on a downloadable broadside from Broadsided Press with artwork by Millian Giang Pham (June 15, 2020).  The link also includes a note on the timing of the publication and a Q&A with the author and artist.

That reminds me of when I knew a romance was over.  I had not seen this fellow in a while, but he suggested we meet up at the train station and take the Acela somewhere, so I thought we'd have several hours to catch up.  And then at the station, we boarded and he led me to our seats in the Quiet Car.  
--From Sing to It, a collection of short fiction by Amy Hempel (Scribner, 2019).  This segment is from "The Quiet Car" (pp. 77-80 in the trade paperback version of the book, which I would recommend over the hardcover purely for the cover art).

Increasingly unsteady even with the walker, he would fall, sometimes knocking over pieces of furniture, creating great crashing sounds that were hard to attribute to such a small, smiling man.  Every time, he got up off the floor--with assistance--and declared that he was fine.  He didn't break an ankle, a hip, a leg, the injuries that so often lead to a death spiral in the elderly.  "You can knock me down, but you can't kill me," he liked to say, dusting himself off. 
--From "Blood Relations," an essay by James Marcus, The New Yorker (March 11, 2019), pp. 34-39.  The piece appeared online with the title "Family Medicine."

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. . . .  
--From "Those Winter Sundays," a poem by Robert Hayden which has been widely anthologized.  (I first read it in 2007 after it was included in the Favorite Poem Project.)  It has also appeared in an earlier form in A Ballad of Remembrance (1962), as well as in its current form in Angle of Ascent: New and Collected Poems (W. W. Norton, 1975) and Collected Poems of Robert Hayden, edited by Frederick Glaysher (Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2013).

A few poems for sheltering in place during Poetry Month

~
. . .  And
I am an enemy
of change, as
you know.  All
the things I
embrace as new
are in
fact old things,
re-released: swimming,
the sensation of
being dirty in
body and mind
summer as a
time to do
nothing and make
no money.  Prayer
as a last re-
sort.  Pleasure
as a means,
and then a
means again
with no ends
in sight. . . .

--From "Peanut Butter," a poem by Eileen Myles, from her book Not Me (Semiotext(e), 1991).  This poem was recently featured on the Ploughshares blog in a post called "Three Poems of Ordinary Exuberance for Uncertain Times," an essay by Ariel Katz (March 18, 2020). 


I have this, and this isn’t a mouth
       full of the names of odd flowers

I’ve grown in secret.
       I know none of these by name

but have this garden now,
       and pastel somethings bloom

near the others and others.
       I have this trowel, these overalls,

this ridiculous hat now.
       This isn’t a lung full of air.

--From "I Have This Way of Being," a poem by Jamaal May (2016).

An older woman in full traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, just
like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing.  "Help,"
said the flight agent.  "Talk to her.  What is her problem?  We
told her the flight was going to be late and she did this."

I stooped to put my arm around the woman and spoke haltingly.
"Shu-dow-a, Shu-bid-uck Habibti?  Stani schway, Min fadlick, Shu-bit-
se-wee?"  The minute she heard any words she knew, however poorly
used, she stopped crying.  She thought the flight had been cancelled
entirely.  She needed to be in El Paso for major medical treatment the
next day.  I said, "No, we’re fine, you'll get there, just later, who is
picking you up?  Let’s call him."

--From "Gate A-4," a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye, from her children's collection Honeybee (HarperCollins, 2008), pp. 162-164.


A man leaves the world 

and the streets he lived on 

grow a little shorter. 

One more window dark 

in this city, the figs on his branches 

will soften for birds.

--From "Streets," a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye, from her book Words Under the Words (Eighth Mountain Press, 1995).

It is December and we must be brave.

The ambulance’s rose of light
blooming against the window.
Its single siren-cry: Help me.
A silk-red shadow unbolting like water
through the orchard of her thigh.

--From "Manhattan Is a Lenape Word," a poem by Natalie Diaz, from her collection Postcolonial Love Poem (Graywolf Press, 2020).


First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.

--From "Diving into the Wreck," a poem by Adrienne Rich, from her book Diving into the Wreck: Poems 1971-1972 (W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1973).

A graphic novel by Fanny Britt and Isabelle Arsenault, and four poems

~
My dad cries.
I don't mean right now as we speak,
even though that's probably the case.
I don't mean that my dad (noun) cries (verb) watching the sun set (adverb phrase), either.
What I mean is, my dad cries.
A dog barks.  A cat meows.  My dad cries.
Truffle thinks it's because he loves us too much.
There's some truth to that. 
But between you, me and the bus driver, 
you don't need to be a rocket scientist to know that if my dad cries, 
it's first and foremost because of the wine. 
--From Louis Undercover, a graphic novel by Fanny Britt and Isabelle Arsenault, translated from the French by Christelle Morelli and Susan Ouriou (Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press, Toronto, Ontario/Berkeley, California, 2017).  First published in French as Louis parmi les spectres (Les Éditions de la Pastèque, Montreal, Quebec, 2016). 

I was on the porch pinching back the lobelia
like trimming a great blue head of hair. 

We'd just planted the near field, the far one 
the day before.  I'd never seen it so clear,

so gusty, so overcast, so clear, so calm.
They say pearls must be worn or they lose their luster, . . .  
--From "Another Story with a Burning Barn in It," a poem by Lisa Olstein, on the website of the Poetry Foundation.  This is an excerpt from her collection Radio Crackling, Radio Gone (Copper Canyon Press, 2006). 


I'm six months along 
and I wonder why nobody 
told me.  I've got red wine 
in my right hand, a cigarette
in my left.  There's
a noisy party all 
around me.  I put down 
the glass and lift my shirt.
The baby's there, visible 
under my transparent
skin, a little girl, wearing
bluebird barrettes.
--From "Expecting," a poem by Meghan O'Rourke, from her collection Sun in Days (W. W. Norton & Company, 2017), pp. 39-40.  This poem was first published, as "Nightdream," in Issue 58 of Tin House.

You can only miss someone when they are still present to you.
--From "Mistaken Self-Portrait as Demeter in Paris," a poem by Meghan O'Rourke, from her collection Sun in Days (W. W. Norton & Company, 2017), pp. 84-85.  This poem was first published, as "Demeter in Paris," by the Academy of American Poets.

What you did wasn't so bad.
You stood in a small room, waiting for the sun.
At least you told yourself that.
I know it was small, 
but there was something, a kind of pulped lemon, 
at the low edge of the sky.
--From "Poem of Regret for an Old Friend," a poem by Meghan O'Rourke, from her collection Sun in Days (W. W. Norton & Company, 2017), pp. 86-87.  "Poem of Regret for an Old Friend" was first published in The New Yorker.

Fiction by Rebekah Matthews, nonfiction by Liz Prato, and poems by Brett Elizabeth Jenkins, José Angel Araguz, and Pablo Neruda

~

The next morning my roommate and I talk online, complaining about Gerard; we wonder if Gerard's girlfriend really likes him more than she liked girls. We look up Gerard on Facebook. There are photos of him posing in front of the mirror, his shirt pulled up, showing his impressively chiseled abs. There are photos of him with his girlfriend. She is pretty with red curly hair and freckles. There is one picture of her smiling at him the way my girlfriend sometimes smiles at her kids. . . .
--From "I Promise to Never Fall in Love with a Stranger," a short story by Rebekah Matthews, Wigleaf (August 21, 2014). 

My brother's autopsy report arrived in the mail on Christmas Eve.  I'd ordered it the week before. . . . 
--From "Anatomy of an Autopsy Report," nonfiction by Liz Prato, Summerset Review (Fall 2014).   

There is a ghost in the machine of my body. The haunting
happens like this: I loll on the bed, open-mouthed,
acting dead. My husband asks, Are you dead
again? My gallbladder this time. . . .

--From "Ghost in the Machine," a poem by Brett Elizabeth Jenkins, Linebreak (September 9, 2014). 

I made up a story for myself once,
That each glove I lost
Was sent to my father in prison . . .

--From "Gloves," a poem by José Angel Araguz, Rattle, Number 28 (Winter 2007), and on the website of the Poetry Foundation. 

Under the trees light
has dropped from the top of the sky,
light
like a green
latticework of branches . . .
--From "Ode to Enchanted Light," a poem by Pablo Neruda, reprinted on the blog "A Year of Being Here" (June 9, 2014).