Self-Portrait: Bullet, Prayer, Teeth
“The world wants us to see this– / girl in the ground. Girl / in the gutter — lover, lamplight // sifting through gum trees.”
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.
Poetry We Admire: Place
By Kim Harvey
For August’s Poetry We Admire, we’ve gathered seven recent poems from across the web that engage with the theme of Place. Sit back and enjoy the ride as we explore the stunning landscapes in these beauties from Traci Brimhall in Terrain.org, José Olivarez in Guesthouse, Faylita Hicks in The Adroit Journal, Travis Cravey in Marías at Sampaguitas, Catherine Pierce in The Shore, Nadia Escalante Andrade translated by Cecilia Weddell in Harvard Review Online and Sharon Tracey in SWWIM Every Day.
Let the World Have You
By Mikko Harvey
“your life really / does turn out to be / a cycle of starting / fires, briefly / worshipping them”
Porcupines
“outside this shelter, a plague / stretching its empire around the world / fastens a mouth like a griot to his reed”
Provenance
“My great great grandfather’s head / looks nothing like my great great grandfather. / It’s placed on its side, in the Wallace exhibit, / in a museum in London.”
Elegy for Ana Mendieta
By Rachel Smith
“vaginal and then, / frame by frame, erupting.”
If Covid-19 Wasn’t a Stain in the Wind, Would the Earth Bleed Any Less?
“Like I say, your body — a product of salt & / music — takes the circumference of a circle, so there is no / wildfire sitting in your throat.”
Autotroph, My Autotroph
“The moon is not a star, not even a minor one / to some other planet. No one will love the moon / like we do here, so far from all the more interesting bodies.”
Ouroboros
“Happiness is a sick old thing– / not the chemical response of the body, / but the way I hunger for it, lost / in my own madness like a dog”