A winter poem December 22, 2011: "The Snow Is Deep on the Ground" by Kenneth Patchen The snow is deep on the ground. Always the light falls Softly down on the hair of my belovèd. This is a good world. The war has failed. God shall not forget us. Who made the snow waits where love is. Only a few go mad. The sky moves in its whiteness Like the withered hand of [...] by Harriet Staff

The Longest Walk: “Memwars” of No One in Particular May 1, 2011: Katrina made landfall August 29, 2005, Rita followed on September 23rd. Roughly 9 months later, I’m boogying down the road to a devastated New Orleans in a tore-down little econo car in the passenger’s seat next to Mr. Congdon. Tim doesn’t look the way I imagined. His sandy hair is unusually thin, his ruddy complexion rather flushed, his [...] by Wanda Coleman

EILEEN’S POEM May 1, 2011: Wrapping it up on the plane and even if I’m doubling up and Harriet can’t use this piece – is double dipping ok on the last day of poet’s month – I’m thinking about the recent poem of mine which is a book. Maybe it’ll become a poem too though. I lost a computer a couple of years ago – it is documented in the Harriet archive of [...] by Eileen Myles

Following the Light: The End of National Poetry Month April 30, 2011: “I had the idea that the world’s so full of pain it must sometimes make a kind of singing. And that the sequence helps, as much as order helps— First an ego, and then pain, and then the singing.” — Robert Hass, “Faint Music” In the morning, my man and I work in the kitchen. He writes about horse racing and I work on freelance [...] by Ada Limón

ALAN’S POEM April 30, 2011: is very New York. There’s jokes about sandwiches growing lousy in the heat of a rotisserie and then of course the regimen of an endless social reality:   Every performance implies a spotlight, even if it means driving through the night to get there, mouth wired open in a grimace or grin…     These quotes [...] by Eileen Myles

bernadette’s poem April 29, 2011: I’m always protesting that I’m not a passionate Bernadette Mayer reader. I was handed a tan pamphlet somewhere – I only regret that Harriet does not have comments because they might read this and remind me who they were – but whoever handed me this stapled version of B. Mayer’s 1964 ceremony latin said it was the first thing she [...] by Eileen Myles

ABRASIVE MACHINING April 28, 2011: I’m reading a poem by Paul Foster Johnson called ABRASIVE MACHINING   It goes:   aided your thought process you self-styled outsiders sharpening sticks against your enemies. Some of us were driven into your arms. Off-kilter and feline, you worked under difficult conditions putting out stapled [...] by Eileen Myles

Devil’s Lunch by Aleksandar Ristovic April 28, 2011: Aleksandar Ristovic is a Serbian poet (1933-1994) with one book in English, Devil’s Lunch, translated by Charles Simic. Pasted below is the title poem, which is not the best poem in the collection, but it’s a good introduction to his work. Devil’s Lunch A thorn is enough for him. An apple made of iron. The nipple of a girl who [...] by Jeffrey McDaniel

Anna’s poem April 27, 2011: Is three, or I guess four. I’m thinking of three people approaching a lake. The poems are more like movements than poems. I guess when I say movements I mean a kind of wash of meaning. But not solid like prose – as I like to say going from the west coast to the east coast of the page. Not broken up like poetry or like the prose part of [...] by Eileen Myles

Violi April 26, 2011: It’s been a year of many deaths and maybe all years are but the poetry world seems bent by loss right now. Leslie Scalapino this time last year. Akilah Oliver died last month. This month Paul Violi. I want to chime in on the surprising (because Paul seemed the most present therefore the most local of men in his radiant charm) accolades from [...] by Eileen Myles