By Alice Oswald
It's a rush, a sploosh of sewage, twenty thousand cubic metres being pumped in, stirred and settled …
Explore Poems: Persona
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- By Mike DoughtyHe was jailed for cruelty to insects, and his agent wasn’t answering the phone, so he stayed awake in the cell all night, pictures jumping around his head of the cops and the blowdryer they took as evidence. He used...
- By David RoderickI wear a flower in my lapel.
I like the sweetness of its lie in my nose.
A carnation, the fool’s flower,
its heart a wilting empire.
In late-night editing sessions,
I imagine I’m planting flowers
in the sockets of eyes. Whatever helps
me reach our rigor... From the magazine:
What the Moon Said to Michael
By Michael FrazierBeen called sickle,
scythe. I know
weaponized. Look at your lineup,
your mind: so sharp,
no wonder they think
you knife. Even if you fly to Japan,
I will be there. I see you
and see a son. I mean
a source of light.
The real conundrum
is there will...From the magazine:
Michael Receives Advice from Marceline the Vampire, the Queen of the Deadbeat Daddy Issues, on How to Cope with an Absent Father
By Michael FrazierJust cause he’s your blood
you can’t expect him to stay.
The wet red of men will abandon a body
if offered the opportunity
of a gash.
This is vampire one-o-one
dude. You think you’re the only one with a phantom
for...From the magazine:
At Church, I Tell My Mom She’s Singing Off-Key and She Says,
By Michael FrazierI ain’t off-key. I just stepped out the key
so when I return,
you can understand the key a little bit better.
The preacher isn’t the only
teacher. Why hit a note on the head
when I can kill it? You mean to tell me
you...- By Terrance HayesBroken Earth
Year of Release: 1939
Running Time: 11 minutes
Cast: Clarence Muse and unidentified boy
I am the sick boy in the shack when the camera opens
On the sunrise and wispy silhouettes of the plow
And the fool mule and my father working a... - By Shanta LeeMama birthed me, Papa sold me in the land of weeping willows
Traces of sin trail miles across skin, I go by Never Forget
My body’s evidence of daddy’s pestilence spread across the land
His sin traces my skin, a path never forgotten
Nameless,... - By Lorine NiedeckerNothing worth noting
except an Andromeda
with quadrangular shoots—
the boots
of the people
wet inside: they must swim
to church thru the floods
or be taxed—the blossoms
from the bosoms
of the leaves
*
Fog-thick morning—
I see only
where I now walk. I carry
my clarity
with me.
*
Hear
where her snow-grave is
the You
ah you
of... - By Marilyn NelsonMusical instruments sleep in the dark
for several hours a day:
the folks we belong to aren't always at play,
so we can't always be at work.
Our silence holds music: an undiscovered bourne,
horizons which have never been viewed,
like undeclared love growing deeper in... - By Anne SextonChild, the current of your breath is six days long.
You lie, a small knuckle on my white bed;
lie, fisted like a snail, so small and strong
at my breast. Your lips are animals; you are fed
with love. At first hunger is... - By Anne SextonIt was only important
to smile and hold still,
to lie down beside him
and to rest awhile,
to be folded up together
as if we were silk,
to sink from the eyes of mother
and not to talk.
The black room took us
like a cave or a... From the magazine:
Marcus Garvey Sits for a Bust
By Marilyn NelsonThe United Negro Improvement Association,
he says, his little bloodshot eyes looking out
of the dark shadows of his overhanging black
brow. His eyebrows quizzical, halfway to a smile.
And over them,...- By Letitia Elizabeth LandonMy hand is on the lyre which never more
With its sweet commerce, like a bosom friend,
Will share the deeper thoughts which I could trust
Only to music and to solitude.
It is the very grove, the olive grove,
Where first I laid my laurel... From the magazine:
Kites
By Stephanie BurtComplete in ourselves,
we look like scraps of paper anyway:
left alone, we could tell
our mothers and one another our owners’
flimsiest secrets and play together all day
until we became intertwined, which is why
you try
to keep us permanently apart.
One of us is a...From the magazine:
English Mole
By Anna Maria HongTo push and push with raw pink claws like
hands of shin. To tunnel my love through wet
earth, wet stars — no one needs the underneath
like me. I give you permission to
grip me. To patrol the worm-drench of
my thinking. To bite a worm’s...- By Langston HughesThe instructor said,
Go home and write
a page tonight.
And let that page come out of you—
Then, it will be true.
I wonder if it’s that simple?
I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.
I went to school there, then Durham, then here
to this college... - By Langston HughesMy name is Johnson—
Madam Alberta K.
The Madam stands for business.
I’m smart that way.
I had a
HAIR-DRESSING PARLOR
Before
The depression put
The prices lower.
Then I had a
BARBECUE STAND
Till I got mixed up
With a no-good man.
Cause I had a insurance
The WPA
Said, We can’t use you
Wealthy... - By Camille T. Dungy
(February,... From the magazine:
Sissieretta Jones
By Tyehimba JessI sing this body ad libitum, Europe scraped raw between my teeth until, presto, “Ave Maria” floats to the surface from a Tituba tributary of “Swanee.” Until I’m a legato darkling whole note, my voice shimmering up from the Atlantic’s...