Reader's Place: April 1, 2024

April is National Poetry Month; here are samples from recently published books of poetry.

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The very hungry caterpillar is an exemplar of desire. An object lesson. If desire is a hole in the self,  the caterpillar eats and eats trying to fill that hole.

As if you could fill that hole.

But eventually it turns itself into that hole.

As if you could feed yourself to yourself.

Or maybe it’s an example of motherhood, as in that horrific book The Giving Tree, in which the tree feeds itself to the child, first for nourishment, then for profit. The neoliberal nurturer.

….

Monica Youn, V. In the passive voice, from From From: poems, 2023.  Library copy

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wwiii floated the globe a common        enemy. as usual, we were all in it

together, it being history, in it up          to our necks. what good is hand-

washing when the contaminants          coat the surface of everything we

touch: doorknobs, compassion,           healthcare, all teeming with germs

of the past, no less concentrated          for being invisible. We breathe them

as one, in and out, the only kind          of sharing that comes naturally to us.

 ….

Evie Shockley, An inoculation against innocence 29 march – 20 april, 2020, From Suddenly we, 2023.   Library copy

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Last month, a student e-mailed me to say she was too scared to go to any class

but ours.

It was not a compliment. I did not take it as a compliment.

I am tired of apologizing for the heaviness of what I am required to discuss in

order to live.

I tell the student she is worthy, I ask her to write a poem about her worthiness.

….

Charif Shanahan, Worthiness, from Trace evidence: Poems, 2023.  Library copy

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 guello yan guella              tell me again

our words for rice

fa’i                                                       : rice growing in filed

fama’ayan                                           : rice field

timulo                                                  : harvested, unhusked rice

tinitu                                                    : husked rice

chaguan aga’ga                                  : wild rice

pugas                                                   : uncooked rice

hineksa’                                               : cooked rice

guello yan guella              tell me again

how you planted

during fa’gualo                                     : october moon

harvested

with conch shell tools

husked

with lusong & lommok                          : mortar & pestle

tell me again       how rice

                        was once ceremony

 ….

Craig Santos Perez, ginen achiote, for grandma rose beatrice hughes perez, from unincorporated territory [åmot], 2023. Library copy

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alligator mississippiensis has survived for millions of years

            unchanged untouched by history

it stayed where god put it

when the other animals ran for the land bridge alligator took

            a nap

when was the last time you found a beringian lion sunning

            itself in your driveway

flat-headed peccary anybody

anybody

….

Jay Hopler, Reason for not moving, from Still life, 2023. Library copy

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He asks,

“What do you do with your poems?”

I reply

…..

I holds hands with them. I face my fear with

them. I tremble in them. I share my secrets with

them. I share my secrets with the world through

them. I cry for the world on them. My tears are

caught by them. I am baptized by them. I drown

in them. I float above them. I am consoled by

them. I find my soul in them. I am emboldened

by them. I am subtle in them. I cuddle with them.

I like to spoon with them. I become consumed by

them. I taste every vowel of them. I swallow the

sum of them. I drink every consonant of them. I

am quenched by them.

I breathe them. I live them.

I am them.

And then

            I give them away.

 ….

Joanna Crowell, My Poems, from This is the honey: An anthology of contemporary Black poets, 2024. Library copy

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Compiled by Ina Rimpau