Literature in Translation |
“Over the church,” “I trust this book,” “Over a black abyss of water” & “To the poet, the century hasn’t given a thought”
“If the century doesn’t care for the ancestors, / I don’t care for its great-grandchildren: the herd. / My century — my poison, my century — my harm, / my century — my enemy, my century — hell.”
Poetry |
“The Novel”
“Over the span of twenty pages / these quiet moments from the man’s past / are interspersed with his present / where a slow but steady trickle of information / allows us to piece together these facts …”
Poetry |
“Enthusiasts” & “Narrative”
“They understand a simple thing / is never simple and get / all electric about it, / like my beautiful friends / who ignite over words …”
Fiction |
“Plunder”
“Asal, my neighbor, was in class next door, and she told secrets about worlds I had never imagined. For instance, her twin brother and father couldn’t visit Persia anymore because ‘the army might make them fight.'”
Interview |
“A Dialogue with Derek Mong”
“I encounter a lot of overly long and under-edited books, many weighed down by prose poems. Some feel strident. These books sound like they began with a thesis, not a question.”
Poetry |
“1986”
“That was the year my mom got a teaching job at my school. / Her classroom, a trailer on the tarmac.”
Poetry |
“Irreplaceable Plates,” “O Patriarca” & “Made Up”
“Behind many extant serious love poems / you’ll find a serious love poet // ejaculating into a ficus pot. // Whether you wanted him there or not. // Always straining to make the sea sound / sexual in a new way.”
Poetry |
“The Singing Dark” & “Autumnal Equinox”
“When it was time to choose / a new body, I opted for the owl, the fire ant, / the hound dog.”
Lyric Prose |
“The Crying”
“The crying began like wind slipping through the cracks of an old window, like the cool pressure of whistling through a missing tooth.”
Poetry |
“Tacoma Narrows”
“No word is safe when our leader lies, & small lies matter / as much as big ones — one whisper of deceit // swells in the retelling, then ripples outwards in a widening / wave.”
Literature in Translation |
“Villon’s movement” & “To ex-ist? To be …”
“And if the nature of light, then, is not to be made luminous by something else, by another source, if the nature of light, is to be lit by itself, then I propose that Villon’s words aspired to be this light.”
Poetry |
“The Old Spinet”
“I riffed on this / diminutive piano — / small soundboard / and short strings fine / for starters, until the baby / grand would surely / take its place …”
Essay |
“Some Thoughts Prompted by David Brooks’ Turin: Approaching Animals“
“Like many people, I’m a mass of contradictions: I don’t buy products tested on animals but no doubt benefit, unwittingly, from experiments carried out on them.”
Poetry |
“Woman with a Trump Mask in the Medical Center Waiting Area”
“She walks with a limp to the reception window. / Overhead, the light fixture twitches and dims. I slump / down into my phone. A moment later, with a sigh / she lowers herself onto the seat across from me …”
Literature in Translation |
“The Vast Night,” “Moon Rise” & “Once”
“Often, I gazed out at you, me standing by the window / as if from the day before, standing, before you, marveling. / The new city still appeared barred to me, and the landscape, / reticent, took umbrage, as if I did not exist.”