Where there’s smoke
there are mirrors
and a dry ice machine,
industrial quality fans.
If I’ve learned anything
about the present moment
Rae Armantrout, one of the founding members of the West Coast group of Language poets, stands apart from other Language poets in her lyrical voice and her commitment to the interior and the domestic. Her short-lined poems are often concerned with dismantling conventions of memory, pop culture, science, and mothering, and these unsparing interrogations are often streaked with wit.
By Rae Armantrout
Ok, we’ve rendered
the rendition
how often?
What were we trying
to get rid of?
We exposed the homeless
character of desire
to the weather.
Shall we talk
about the weather
worsening four times
faster than expected,
eight times,
until the joy
of pattern recognition
kicks in?
Until the crest
...
By Rae Armantrout
Strand. String.
In this dream,
the paths cross
and cross again.
They are spelling
a real boy
out of repetition.
•
Each one
is the one
real boy.
Each knows
he must be
wrong
about this, but
he can’t feel
how.
•
The fish
and the fisherman,
the pilot,
the princess,
the fireman and
the ones on fire.
By Bertrand N. O. Walker
Hush thee and sleep, little one,
The feathers on thy board sway to and fro;
The shadows reach far downward in the water
The great old owl is waking, day will go.
Rest thee and fear not, little one,
Flitting fireflies come to light you on your way
To the fair land of dreams, while in the grasses
The happy cricket chirps his merry lay.
Tsa-du-meh watches always o’er her little one,
The great owl cannot harm you, slumber on
’Till the pale light comes shooting from the eastward,
And the twitter of the birds says night has gone.
By Ahn Joo Cheol
Faintly remains.
Scarcely remains.
Drops of water form inside my life
as if I cherish a drop of light
just as love is formed inside the word love
just as the word goodbye doesn’t permeate it
it faintly lingers.
A thin part of me remains.
Sometimes inside me...
By Roque Salas Rivera
We have lived on the horizon for so long,
coasts no longer know our flags.
They buried us where they bury ships,
Commonwealth projects, and literary whales,
which represent no threat.
Someday, a great writer will claim
we were an idea the breadth of an ocean
and,...
By Victoria Chang
Agnes only had nine years to live. The angels must have begun to hover around her canvas like monkeys. This canvas has nine white thin strips between the red and blue ones. I’ve spent my life thinking about the blue...
