POETRY Magazine cover of January 2007 issue, featuring drawing "Pig and Soldier" by Ward Schumaker

January 2007

Ward Schumaker, "Pig and Soldier," 2006
 
  • Zbigniew Herbert
  • Rhoda Janzen
  • Carl Dennis
  • Medbh McGuckian
  • H. Hix
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From this Issue

Poem
Translated By Alissa Valles
It is truly no evidence of a great soul
O nature
and if you aren't magnanimous
it may be you don't exist at all

Could you really not treat him to a sudden death
like a candle guttering
like a wig slipping off
like a ring's short...
Poem
The psalter invites us to consider
a cat and a rat in relationship
to an arched hole, which we
shall call Circumstance. Out of

Circumstance walks the splendid
rat, who is larger than he ought
to be, and who affects an expression...
Poem
Now that the time remaining is insubstantial,
I need to review my history while asking
What exactly it suggests I've lived for,
What pleasures or duties, what moods
Of brief elation or extended calm.

To expect a meaning deeper than that,
To believe in a purpose...
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