Reader's Place: April 1, 2024
April is National Poetry Month; here are samples from recently published books of poetry.
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
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
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
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
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
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
Compiled by Ina Rimpau