Poetry

Reading: The Bluet by James Schuyler
James Schuyler (1923-1991) was an American poet, central figure of the New York School, close to Frank O'Hara and John Ashberry. The man, who had worked as a secretary to W.H. Auden, also won a Pulitzer Prize for his collection The morning of the poem. I read a poem about a flour in dour October, ...
You can look back but you cannot go back
The sun has climbed to the center of my life, I feel the height. I am now allowed to play my role. Ahead of me: the big afternoon, the affirmations, the chiseling of cold metaphors, the wisdom of oracles, the old belief that we can tell darkness from the light, the relief of amor fati, ...
How to live
Learn how to live in overtime After all the things have been felt Teach yourself the glory of gratitude Become a bricklayer of moments In the shade of a towering ideology The one you followed for a while Be old enough for your age, and always wear a smile
Our language
I overlook the green garden The wind is almost invisible A sheep is bleating, nearby Look at the evolution of Our language, she is layered She is a flight And a hiding place Some people make it The green garden doesn't make it The wind doesn't make it The sheep doesn't make it
Reading: Nocturnal Sailing by Mario Wirz
Mario Wirz (1956-2013) was a German poet and writer who started his career as theater actor and director. I read a poem in a translation by Renate Latimer: the wind in your dream swells the curtains into a sail tears asunder all the things we have collected in the fearful light of the bedside lamp ...
we burst heartlong through life
we burst heartlong through life before the silence we don't know the probability of a thermonuclear war & other reflections of the mammalian brain ________that rascal! butterfly wings are rife with functionality ________or take phantom limbs we tool like a tool inside a tool & that is confusing too but also wonderful like feeling the ...
Advice for the digital age
I stretch out a finger. On most of the days of our universe, that finger has been and will be no finger, but a loose collection of atoms not involved with one another. And they couldn't care less about being a finger.
Starlight
last night, ancient starlight fell onto your arm it was billions of years old and had traveled the entire time only to smash into your barren wrinkled skin. there was a team of people who rushed in to help you wonder, and to make sure you understand the grandure, the sheer magnificence of it all. ...
Reading: Sudden Movements by Bob Hicok
Bob Hicok (1960) is a poet from Michigan who writes accessible and meditative poetry. He currently teaches creative writing at Purdue University. My father's head has become a mystery to him. We finally have something in common. When he moves his head his eyes get big as roses filled with the commotion of spring. Not ...