Essay |
“Echolocation”
“Just before a suicide there is – trust me — a split-second stripped of tormenting voices and mocking tunes and whatever injury or guilt, rage or despair led to this enormous silence.”
Poetry |
“The White Hare”
“You saw it first in a dream: / the white hare bounding over / tufted knolls, the sun arcing / toward sable twilight”
Poetry |
“Thank Plankton”
“Well, they are gone, and here it comes, / the August sun, with the momentum of a rolling boil, / to blanch the greens and blues from leaves of grass / and trees and lighten boughs / by grafting absence where sap has stopped.”
Poetry |
“Negentropy”
“Is light / more like the waves sloshing ashore, or // the shore itself, all seven quintillion grains, / give or take?”
Literature in Translation |
from Final Judgements
“In art, as in any other activity, it is advisable to imitate for as long as possible. Only when there is no other choice does it become tolerable to be original.”
Poetry |
“Comedy (iii),” “Preparation of the Dead Girl or Preparation of the Bride” & “Roxies in Savasana”
“As far as Courbet’s knowing could carry him, the girl was dead. She was dead & then made marriageable, badly resurrected by an agent, white dress layered over her naked body.”
Poetry |
“A Few Wars”
“They’re reaching out to us with their guns. / They must want to make a difference // to someone — it’s us they hail now …”
Literature in Translation |
from Motherfield
“Every year the motherfield is a bride / under a thin muslin of snow, / under the strict supervision of tradition, / it is smoothed with rakes, / combed with ploughs, / inseminated.”
Poetry |
“What’s Your Favorite Color”
“— I asked, icebreaker, and someone said “orange, now,” / and I agreed, somewhat, having come around to it also. / My favorite rose is orange.”
Poetry |
“Anterior Cartography”
“Certain wavelengths appear / not as beatific summation / but as feral anterior cartography where terror attempts to invade / our interior translucency”
Literature in Translation |
“I am Watermelon, I Am Lamb” and “Skin Mole”
“My family used me to drink water, / they thought I was a tin cup. / This goes back to the day I cupped my palm in prayer, / and to the times I’d fallen but didn’t break.”
Fiction |
“Adventure”
“We watched the dog for a little while. He peed again, then we got back to our activities inside Vee’s house. We did not know how to play with a dog, what he was for. Later I walked home and wanted a dog for myself, but not one just to look at.”
Poetry |
“Edensong,” “Can You Hear Me?” & “What the Beard Said, III”
“Wanting song / in the beginning / beginning to end // now we are falling // through what’s to come …”
Interview |
“Making the Unseen Visible: A Conversation With Kelsi Vanada”
‘I feel more keenly the sense of speaking in someone else’s voice when I’m reading my translation of Andrea’s nonfiction — maybe the difference is that when translating poetry, I’m able to speak with someone else’s voice.”
Poetry |
“Sabbatical,” “Genealogy” & “Allegory”
“I knew I’d go missing if I lugged my life / around the corsos of Mezzegra / but I got lucky, stumbling on a celebration: / the anniversary of Mussolini’s hanging.”