Prose Poems
Around certain clusters of the dead, almost magnetically, a vortex of opacity gathers in the record.
One must think of, but finally, I had to agree, not walk around naked, not in body or spirit. Not write about, when what is a word, at the risk of disconnection, no longer ask. What it would take. Acknowledge the dark, though with dreams in color and. If still possible. Moist skin against the page.
In any narrative, facts are present or not. One might assume the more facts, the better the constructed history, since facts are meant to reflect what can’t be computed by storytelling alone, which is said to be subjective and therefore inaccurate.
Zachary talks about wanting to be with someone because he feels like he can be a better person for someone else.
The challenge is not to launch into space. It is how to treat other people.
Each wounds you badly, but no boy hurts
Like the first one did
on the other hand if someone were to ask Leopoldo about his pilgrimage to Cajas,
1. I’m not interested in propaganda.
As rioting continues in the UK, Bhanu Kapil’s first book, The Vertical Interrogation of Strangers, now published ten years ago, feels as relevant as ever, giving us a chorus of voices talking about dismemberment and change.
The phase vocoder bends the pitch of
my voice toward a norm.
This First Proof contains the poems “Ghost Mist (Pacific Coast Highway),” “With,” and “Glitch.”
After September 11, I kept thinking that the United States wouldn’t invade Afghanistan. I was so wrong about that.
The apes are mulling about the magazine racks and rhinoceros are shuffling their feet.
Our love arrived on a platform of the subway station at Grand Army Plaza.
Misled as to the nature of your overtures, still I ended up waking in your royal house on a bed of snow-colored leaves to the sound of sibilant birds.
Monica Sarsini has a talent for describing sensory experience. Taste, touch, and color come alive through a unique voice.
This First Proof contains an excerpt from the collection of prose poetry City Terrace Field Manual.
Wonderful as it is to have two books by Paul Schmidt—poet, playwright, translator, actor, teacher—appearing at the same time, it is also a bit confusing.
Novelist Carole Maso unearths the darkness in the dizzying poems of Lucie Brock-Broido, collected in her 1995 book, a seven year project inspired by Emily Dickinson’s Master Letters.