Poetry We Admire: Care Work
This July, Associate Editor Benjamin Bartu curates a selection of poems about care work.
Poetry
We are so grateful to all of our partner-poets for sharing their work with us—please enjoy their beautiful words in our Featured Poetry catalogue.
Enchanted is a Word for Haunted
“On all sides of the fishing pond, a maw. A clearing of the throat. A clear sky.”
The Reproductive Language of Colors
By Philip Jason
“The difference between the earth and the sky / is not always obvious to me.”
I just wanted to see what it would do when I say—
From behind its aluminum dermis, / the machine transcribes the living, / studying the sound a muscle makes skipped / across roof of mouth.
CNN’s correspondent thinks afghani means Afghan
By Liala Zaray
“My afghanis are quietly pressed into palms and secretly traded / When ready for purchase, I place my afghanis face side up”
Theodicy
“About our bodies, strangers in white / deliver the news; in some places, the only option / is the option Mary had.”
Belief
By Rana Tahir
“when the athan breaks across the sky / the seas come back to pray. I will / believe most things easily.”
AN OFF-ISLAND CHAMORU LISTENS TO “BENTE UNO YU’ GI PRESU” BY MARIANAS HOMEGROWN AND WRITES ABOUT GUILT
By Sydney Blas
“Our bodies were latte stones, pillaring and holding their weight against what felt like a push towards home.”
Aubade with Hope
“River, river– / lift up your roaring tongue to heaven, / swear you do not have my mother / in your belly.”