He is the one that, tossing a bomb into
The crowd, takes notes;
The one who, from an unseen distance
Levels on the tripod that black rifle
With sights that see as far as his soul
Trains and levels, manoeuvres for a clear sight
Of the speaker on the platform;
Waits, watching the clock, for the onset of a car
In the left corner of its back seat
Carrying the enemy
The poet is the one who is always preparing
The ambush, the one who
Covers with layers of
Earth and grass and worn weed,
The spiked pit,
And watches from the level of weeds ahead;
The poet is the bomb in the city,
Unable to bear the circle of the
Seconds in his heart,
Waiting to burst.
The late Lakdasa Wikkramasinha was an instructor in English, University of Kelanyia. His Jean Arasanayagam is a lecturer in English at the Government books include Nossa Senhora des Cinglais (1973), O Regal Blood (1975), and Grasshopper Gleaming (1976).
“Draw me a lion.”
So I set my pen
Giménez Smith’s latest collection of poems, Be Recorder, engages the lyric tradition as well as spoken word to reveal the complexity of citizenship.
The poet on the politics of the gaze, the migratory act of reading, the anxiety of bilingualism, and the universality of shame.
Originally published in
Featuring interviews with Reno, Derek Walcott, Neal Jimenez & Eric Stoltz, George Condo, Louis Kahn, Camille Billops, Darius James, Michael Jenkins, and Joe Mantello.
We need our own space to think and digest what we see. And we also have to trust the viewer and trust the power of the object. And the power is in simple things. I like the kind of clarity that that brings to thought. It keeps thought from being opaque.
Felix Gonzalez-Torres
