[The bird’s-eye view]

By Ben Lerner b. 1979 Ben Lerner

The bird’s-eye view abstracted from the bird. Cover me, says the soldier on the screen, I’m going in. We have the sense of being convinced, but of what? And by whom? The public is a hypothetical hole, a realm of pure disappearance, from which celestial matter explodes. I believe I can speak for everyone, begins the president, when I say famous last words.

Ben Lerner, “The bird’s-eye view” from Angle of Yaw (Copper Canyon Press, 2006). www.coppercanyonpress.org

Source: Angle of Yaw (Copper Canyon Press, 2006)

Biography

Born and raised in Topeka, Kansas, poet and editor Ben Lerner earned a BA in political science and an MFA in creative writing from Brown University, and was a Fulbright scholar in Madrid.

Lerner is the author of several full-length poetry collections, including Mean Free Path (2010) and Angle of Yaw (2006), which was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Northern California Book Award. His sonnet sequence, The . . .

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