‘History is the soft medium…’ ‘History is the soft medium…’
Dec 2, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Aaron Kunin
[3 fragments of Mimnermos] [3 fragments of Mimnermos]
Translated from the Greek by Anne Carson
Nov 23, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Anne Carson
Epitaph for Ben Sonnenberg Epitaph for Ben Sonnenberg
But still! being but a tree one cannot ask them pines touched by his sleeve's passing where to go I know not when he was buried glancing over the land going up that road ("to wait for a faraway person" sounding like the word for "pines") under the pines when spring came along the road my beloved prince he will have been perfect while the shining days are piled up how strangely awful to utter it on the death and burial of one prince this is a song. This is a song on the death and burial of one prince to utter it how strangely awful while the shining days are piled up he will have been perfect my beloved prince when spring came along the road under the pines (the word for "pines" sounding like the word "to wait for a faraway person") going up that road, glancing over the land when he was buried I know not where to go pines touched by his sleeve's passing one cannot ask them being but a tree, but still!
Nov 23, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Anne Carson
The Oldest Romantic The Oldest Romantic
Why didn’t you warn me of the arm’s smoothness in its dormitory, where it enters the roundness of the shoulder, my eyes locked open. What made you think I’d forget the lure of the long gaze when you look back at me with that shadow under your arm when the sun is low… Why didn’t you believe it exists, the breathing in the lung under the arm, you alone with the vacant pain in one eye, the triangle of dark under you?
Nov 10, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Elisa SampedrÃn
Emily Dickinson Came to Earth and Then She Left Emily Dickinson Came to Earth and Then She Left
Nov 3, 2010 / Books & the Arts / C.A. Conrad
Ibex Have Evolved for Life at the Top Ibex Have Evolved for Life at the Top
When we say specimen we mean you. By you we mean whatever collection of night sweats and shopping lists accumulates in the bed by dawn. When we say dark we mean pitch, moonless, starless, don't even open your eyes. When we say he has your eyes we mean we see nothing of you there. If you want someone to come for you, you'll have to cry harder than that. If you want to be prepared, practice: blizzard, fire, famine. Your shoes or your coat? Your cat or your dog? Sister, daughter, mother, wife?
Oct 27, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Lisa Olstein
Stele Stele
Vertigo, itself in air small hands there are also in pattern becoming scattered shifts the axes, chances the stiff wind this other world that almost visits standing in an empty glass the light like crystal I cut myself on air that finds its difference here open air, the kind sharing across the fields its walking song
Oct 20, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Cole Swensen
The Chiefest Word The Chiefest Word
The most best, winter oyster, what rings along the nerve. Deepest seeking, heart-most root. Zinc and copper. Clawed foot. What streaks across the synapse, harnessed to a moment. Magnetic zero amplified. Every-any-thing wild, beast that beats or blurs or bothers. The newt’s eye, needle in a socket open wide uninking on the universe. A steady bleed. Ever most. Bestest bet. Cosmos.
Oct 13, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Catherine Wing
Ink Ink
I am the Angel of Death. I have come to confess.
Sep 30, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Jesse Nathan
Sardines Sardines
is a yellow, red, orange, black & green word. I got sardines at the dollar store where everything except sardines is more than a dollar, for sixty cents, as they should be my father used to take sardine sandwiches to work perhaps therefore, I love sardines. when people used to talk about the subway, they'd say: we were packed like sardines which sends a message: small, cheap, tightly packed, anchovies for the poor or you too can be colorful & inexpensive as a really snappy, tiny bright blue convertible in which you can enjoy the good things about feeling like a sardine but maybe you'd rather be a striped bass or be a manatee with mev or a grand whale, forgetful of nothing even being so big, the ocean's CEO, you'll take home a giant amount of cash when the ocean goes bust so you can share it even with the downtrodden sardines who get packed in cans in Thailand & shipped to the family dollar store for Bernadette
Sep 22, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Bernadette Mayer