Audio
Poetry Off the Shelf
Tiana Clark on divorce, joy, and taking up space on the page.
Category
Separation & Divorce
Showing 1-20 of 206 results
- PoemBy Grady ChambersAfter we separated, I walked in the mornings
through that new part of the city, its streets named
for precious stones. I could never remember if Jade
came before Ruby, whether Garnet Street
preceded Opal. The winter was like that: turning into the wrong... - ArticleBy Julie IrigarayA hymn to female independence in the form of a withering critique of marriage
- PoemBy Moon Bo YoungTranslated By Hedgie ChoiI think with you at the center of my thoughts. Europa orbits Jupiter and centers Jupiter in its thoughts. Europa thinks about its day, spinning around that thing that is slowest to come when you want to escape. It massages...
- PoemBy Carlina DuanI wake up each morning desperate for another body. instead, the house cools
with blue windows. my lone carpet, my humidifier. what I’d give to touch
another spine, a hand, to sing into a temple. there is a cap on the world... - PoemBy Alina StefanescuToday I wept with the kids as we drove
the dirt roads, grass greener than ever. I felt it
closed. The meadows smothered dozing cows in clover
and violet. A certain valence. It came so close
to something nameless. I needed the omnivorous
metaphor, a... - PoemBy Andrey EgorovTranslated By Tatiana Retivovi
The impudent clang of locks
lops off blessed sleep at midway.
Angels convulsively putter about
sleep’s stump and then perish.
Foxes hide briskly in their foxholes
looking out from under their lids
in red alarm
into the outer dark—
there where one of our own,
mind you not the... - PoemBy Mike OwensForty books, mostly poetry,
religion, or politics. Four times
the number I’m allowed.
A Smith Corona Wordsmith 250
that will sometimes, while printing,
go inexplicably berserk.
Appellate briefs, legal work
from my own little war of attrition:
The State vs. Michael Owens.
Old letters from loved ones,
some who left... - PoemBy Anne CarsonShall we sharpen our eyes and circle closer to the beauty of the husband—
carefully, for he was on fire.
Under him the floor was on fire,
the world was on fire,
truth was on fire.
Around him green fire blew straight off every tree.
He... - PoemBy Seungja ChoiTranslated By Cathy Park Hong & Won-Chung KimYou have abandoned me.
Saying it’s time to break up,
you have abandoned me.
In the mountain and at the seashore,
I have abandoned myself.
When I splayed myself on the table and spread my legs,
I saw the sky through the concrete roof
and the air... - PoemBy Adrienne SuIt isn’t the marriage that maps your course,
only the divorce.
One house has become all penance,
the other indulgence.
You struggle to resist
what has grown to feel illicit,
an appetite, threatening obsession,
for delectation.
What grows on trees tastes unfinished,
an imitation of artifice.
What court determined
that sweetness... - PoemBy Anne SextonThe end of the affair is always death.
She’s my workshop. Slippery eye,
out of the tribe of myself my breath
finds you gone. I horrify
those who stand by. I am fed.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.
Finger to finger, now she’s mine.
She’s... - PoemBy Anne SextonI am surprised to see
that the ocean is still going on.
Now I am going back
and I have ripped my hand
from your hand as I said I would
and I have made it this far
as I said I would
and I am on... - PoemBy Lindsey HollandThere’s sunshine with blueberries each morning I sing
fortissimo most evenings while we cook This is a poem
about joy It’s not neat My ex-husband had a rare condition
that made him feel fire ants were biting his face
eyebrows first then the rest... - PoemBy Christine Kanownikevery night
an ancient priest
gives me advice
and in the morning
I’m all alone
with nothing
a universe
I don’t want
to bother you
or to upend
the universe
but your realtors
are getting
a divorce
the dark
is the dark
the wind
the sound
of the ocean
all relative
to the sensitivity
of a tiny
chain of bones
leading up
to or... - PoemBy Karthika NaïrSt. Andrews. Forbach. Gothenburg. Sète. Douai. Roubaix. The towns we knew as shapes at night, or a stranger in the next berth half-hidden beneath a duvet. A whirling midnight of boat-hopping in Nantes. Half of Lyon from 2001: all the...
- PoemBy Zubair AhmedForgive me.
I say to the wall.
My life is paper.
My jaws rust.
Wanderer: singing.
The sky is my home.
I throw roses into it
to color it red.
Stop: these roads
grow from me.
My journey must end
because my destinations
have ended.
Kneeling like a priest,
seeing the spherical eyes
of flies,... - PoemBy Francine SimonHe stood at the back of his old Church, wanting to join in with the congregation.
Everyone followed the priest,
I confess to almighty God, and to you my brothers and sisters, that
I have sinned through my own fault in my thoughts... - PoemBy Javier Zamora[byline]la herradura, s.v.—¿Do I have a mother? Have her pinkie in my hand crossing the street? Have her breath on my hair as she sings arru-rru mi niño to sleep. ¿Don’t you mean where? ¿What was your question? I’m older....
- PoemBy Elaine EquiI thought I had lost myself,
but I see it’s you that’s gone missing.
O always elsewhere.
What yacht or spaceship have you hijacked?
In what seedy hideaway do you scoff
at the sameness of all cities, all ideas?
Once you made me loquacious
because what’s the...