Interview |
A Conversation with Jesse Nathan
“My process is a kind of deep listening, a hesitating, a holding back as long as I can … the poem comes after a long process of induction — a process of creating the conditions out of which I must speak, need to speak, can’t stay silent any longer.”
Literature in Translation |
“Chaïm Soutine’s Obsession”
“That his rage was in a painting did not suffice to appease his rage against the painting. He kept taking back his works from those who had bought them, to destroy them.”
Essay |
“All Elegy: What Are Poems for in a Destitute Time?”
“I find myself asking, what can a poem possibly do to confront or alleviate or expose the climate crisis? How can the poem possibly avoid the hazard of merely “making us aware,” an increasingly helpless and self-indulgent realization.”
Poetry |
“The Theory of the Multiverse”
“I live uptown I live / downtown I live all around / say goodbye to the mythopoeic / no more receiving holy orders / just remember to pay attention”
Poetry |
“A Way to Restore Beauty to the Universe” & “A Garden, Post-Catastrophe”
“… we spoke to a copper sundial to call on womankind, / our sisters in the desert, our mothers on the coast / evoking laughter not yet forgotten in a season of grief –”
Essay |
“Appraisal”
“Having clipped it from the classifieds, my mother showed us the ad: Cash for Class Rings — This Weekend Only. Most households still subscribed to daily newspapers then, retrieving the bundles from lawns or landings and yanking off green rubber bands to flatten them out before reading.”
Poetry |
“What’s The Past Like?”
“But / now I recall the sound a gray bird // made to wake me from a crazed dream. / Like a scratch awl with its fluted wooden // handle chipping bark off an oak tree.”
Essay |
“Bad Seeds”
“Pop a seed into your mouth and you enjoy an elfin sip of its juice, tart and sweet at the same time. In an instant, the pleasure is gone and you’re left with only the white core, bitter and unpleasant to chew.”
Literature in Translation |
“The Bird’s Birth,” “The Bird (II)” & “The Old Woman’s Song of Herself as a Young Girl”
“this is the bird / in whose one eye / there is the last leaf of fall / and in whose other eye / there is the news / of the spring baby’s hasty birth”
Poetry |
“Autobiography of Melancholy” & “Silence”
“All day I was drugged with sadness. / Asleep, my fists curled like thoughts unspoken. // I am a realist bothered by reality. / Someone who dreams with eyes wide open.”
Poetry |
“Eternal Summer”
“Split a penny in half and use it twice / he jokes, gesturing at $6.99 / neon laundry detergent jugs, dented. / I couldn’t afford these back then.“
Literature in Translation |
“This Is A Humane Country”
“Once I got to the hotel, a man visiting from the inland said to me, “Your Spanish is a little too good. We don’t trust anybody who doesn’t speak a bit of our local lingo because they might pull one over on us. Know what I mean?”
Poetry |
“Primum Mobile”
“Without / heat, a drop of water would / bounce, forever, and a heart would simply / jangle, eternal bell.”
Poetry |
“Lucky Man” & “Stella D’Oro”
“And he’d earned one stamp at least, because, // he said to Val, just making sure, those cans of soup / she was ringing up were five for $5, and he bought ten …”
Literature in Translation |
from The Number on Your Arm is Blue Like Your Eyes
“I’ve never met anyone younger than I with a number on his or her arm, but what would be so special about that? Those who try to sensationalize the memory of the Shoah or heap superlatives onto it trivialize the suffering of victims or veer into kitsch.”