Poetry |
“wish” and four untitled poems
“wandering on both ends of the world / my body is a channel / one end flowing toward a black ocean / the other tied with a bright ribbon of sunlight”
Essay |
“The Sky of His Mouth”
“He became fascinated with the music and poetry of Tupac Shakur at some point in the 90s after hearing ‘Dear Mama’ on the radio. He also found it a lot easier to get his students interested in Tupac than Delmore Schwartz and Robert Lowell.”
Interview |
A Dialogue With Anne Marie Macari
“My way of working is to let things grow in the dark, to let the unknown do its work, though that’s where all my doubt and impatience arise as well. But really I don’t have a choice — the material has to take on a certain amount of life before I can work with it. And then something triggers the poems to emerge, some sound, word or memory.”
Poetry |
“neap tide — spring”
“what if an old wife is what / is necessary to predict the weather // dried sugar kelp can predict the weather / for example — the rocks here winter / woven with it …”
Poetry |
“His Shaving Cuts” “Practice” and “Without You”
“First pretzels I’ve eaten without you — / leg cramps, so our son said they’d help, / the salt, which people called me in contrast / to sweet you …”
Essay |
“Conserving Michelangelo”
“A diagonal tear crosses from the arches on the left to the robe of the figure on the right, then disappears — as if a bird had suddenly flown through Michelangelo’s studio and he, taking its path for a sign, had put it in.”
Poetry |
“Shipwreck — the ark” and “Selva oscura”
“& the night says thank you to the trees with abundant shadow / & sleep requires humans to double down on darkness / & the trees are prison bars / & humans are afraid to enter there”
Fiction |
“The Three Trials of Silent Lady“
“You could catch a ton of codfish within sight of Cape Cod in the early Eighties — which was why my shipmate Chris and I stepped aboard the fifty-foot school-bus-yellow gillnetter Silent Lady late one winter afternoon …”
Poetry |
“Biopic” and “Resting Bitch Face”
“And I pause here to tip my honeyed wine // to Sappho, her lost words ever on my mind. Sappho, / another straight-mouthed beauty, her poetry / so revered her face was stamped on coins.”
Poetry |
“Unaccompanied Minors” and “August From My Desk”
“Every day, across borders, behind walls / Other mothers sigh and begin walking / Their children down the early road / Into the unknown, off to living other lives.”
Poetry |
“Canticle of the New Order”
“… if you make mistakes / let them come in waves / in cookie trays champagne / glasses music boxes / unmade beds …”
Fiction |
“Poifect”
“Martin’s wife crawls onto the lap of the politician. Martin’s wife feels that she and Martin must become more civic-minded. They are local business owners, after all. And all politics is local.”
Poetry |
“Hungry”
“… someone says / ground pork / napa cabbage, / and another pushes / a highchair up close / for a child in a pink T-shirt …”
Poetry |
“Bodies”
“And what’s the deep meaning of body / fragility? Transience of all things? Supremacy / of soul? Need for pleasure to counter pain?”