Reading of my poems "In Paran," "Bloom," "Father of a Ghost (after Stephen Dedalus's Theory of Hamlet), and "Letter to Lermontov." Video by Jonathan Penton
Madhat/Fulcrum Seattle 2014 AWP reading
Showing posts with label In Paran. Show all posts
Showing posts with label In Paran. Show all posts
Monday, December 14, 2015
Sunday, October 25, 2015
Countdown to Louisiana!
Dear Louisiana friends, I am so excited to be visiting the legendary cities of New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Lafayette for the very first time. I'll be reading from my books In Paran, #specialcharacters, and my new novel, Patient Women. I hope to see you at my readings there!
Tuesday,
November 3, 7pm-9pm
Elevator
Projects
451
Florida St., Suite 102, Baton Rouge
(in
the downtown Chase building)
No
cover, wine provided
Readers
include Xander Bilyk (New Orleans), Wendy Taylor Carlisle (Eureka Springs, AR),
Michael Harold (Shreveport), Alex “PoeticSoul” Johnson (Lafayette), Dylan
Krieger (Baton Rouge), and Larissa Shmailo (NYC)
Thursday,
November 5, 6pm sharp-8pm sharp:
Crescent
City Books
230
Chartres St., New Orleans
No
cover, wine provided
Readers
include Wendy Taylor Carlisle (Eureka Springs, AR), Michael Harold
(Shreveport), Carolyn Hembree (New Orleans), Alex “PoeticSoul” Johnson
(Lafayette), Christopher Shipman (New Orleans), and Larissa Shmailo (NYC)
Friday,
November 6, 7:30 pm-9:30pm
The
Ballet Académie
200
Polk St., Lafayette
No
cover, wine provided
Readers include Wendy
Taylor Carlisle (Eureka Springs, AR), Michael Harold (Shreveport), Alex
“PoeticSoul” Johnson (Lafayette), Dylan Krieger (Baton Rouge), Larissa Shmailo
(NYC), and John Warner Smith (Baton Rouge)
Saturday, May 30, 2015
I'm in a table of contents with Blake, Auden, and Akhmatova
Thrilled to have my poem "In Paran" in the dipodic section of this beautiful Everyman's Library / Penguin Random House metric anthology edited by Annie Finch and Alexandra Oliver.
Saturday, December 20, 2014
Poems in The Enchanting Verses Literary Review
Delighted that my poems "In Paran" and "Love's Comely Behind" have been accepted by the Enchanting Verses Literary Review. Thanks to guest editor Marc Vincenz for this splendid pub!
Sunday, June 01, 2014
Poem in Random House Anthology
My poem, "In Paran," will appear in the new Random House anthology of metrical verse edited by Annie Finch. I learned this yesterday, on my birthday. I know it was your beautiful birthday wishes that materialized this gift for me (yes, I believe in magic). Thank you!
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
RESOLUTION / REVOLUTION : Larissa Shmailo
Larissa Shmailo is a poet and a translator of Russian. The following poems are reprised from the 100,0000 Poets for Change anthology edited by Anny Ballardini and Obododimma Oha in collaboration with Michael Rothenberg.
Winedark Sea
In the east, in the eastern rising lands, a tide, westering, earthdrawn, rising, the morning sun bloodied in its wake. She drags, pulls, shifts, hauls, trascines her hydraulic load. Tides born of tides, moondrawn, myriadheaded, within her, within her blood, oinopa ponton: the winedark sea. A wet sign calls her hour, bids the earth-shaken fallen rise, bids the wet-dirt wounded rise, bids the blooddimmed peoples rise, as she radiates out, out, out, forever from her bed. The wet sign calls her hour, bids all to rise from childbed, bridebed, deathbed, rise. He comes, the pale salt vampire, in clouds and tears, and claws, battle-led, draws, battle-red, mouth-to-mouth, limb-to-limb, skin-to-skin. There.
Here.
Scarcity
Listen:
If you wait but don’t want
If you want but don’t take
If you take but don’t use
If you use but don’t care
If you care but not much
The petty demon comes.
The petty demon says:
Not all of you are wanted
Not everyone is needed
A few may be accepted
There’s scarcity, you see
There are no loaves and fishes─
Not for the likes of you─
A few baguettes for baby
Some caviar for me
There’s just enough to shit and sleep
But not enough for thee.
The petty demon shrieks:
Time is money
Sell short
Eat to win
Assume the position.
In the world
In the angry material world
There are men who are not men
Men
Whose imaginations never rise
Above the box and plane
Whose imaginations squat
Upon the positions of power.
If the petty demon bothers you
Here’s what you say
Tell him:
I don’t know about
Your lawyer’s fees
Your MDs
Your CEOs
Your deep freeze
I do know that
The blind man is perfect
That there’s more to life than irony
And squealing like a stuck pig
That the truth is hard but you can stand on it
That time isn’t money or a threat but a gift.
As you assume your position
In the world
Do not love
Men who are not men
Whose imaginations never rise
Walk tall; walk with God
Assume nothing; take a position.
560 Brooke Avenue
The walls, barbed wire, barbed, next to a
drive-by window of Burger King: Dios, is
this your way? Electric doors, opened one
at a time, they make a sound, it maddens.
All the time the boys do time, all the time
they say, “Lunacy, this is crazy, crazy mad.”
It is. “Nigga, nigga,” one boy prays, farts as
the JC twists his hand: He tries to laugh, he
cries instead, porque? Scared, so scared, his
scarred voice cracks, 15. “Nigga, ay, I here
4 murder,” he lies. O child, perhaps so. My
Jesus of the got-nailed, my Angel of the why,
& what could you have done yet, why are you
here, porque, my God, & donde vamos, u & I?
Vive L’Égypte
A man, beaten — face the color of a burkha
dragged through the mud — is lifted by Isis
with her rose and her tiet.
Isis, who loves mothers, the downtrodden, slaves —
who is friend to the Nile and the dead —
who listens
even to the prayers of the rich — lifts his frame —
trampled and broken — from her mud.
Allahu ahkbar! he cries.
She cries. Cairo — Sharm El-Sheikh — Alexandria —
Hurghada — Luxor — Aswan — the blood of Isis
calls from Philae.
Speak Now
Speak now.
Darkened, once neutral air,
Skyscrapers turn,
Dream fire, and burn.
Dream fire, and burn.
Skyscrapers turn,
Darkened, once neutral air,
Speak now.
Winedark Sea
In the east, in the eastern rising lands, a tide, westering, earthdrawn, rising, the morning sun bloodied in its wake. She drags, pulls, shifts, hauls, trascines her hydraulic load. Tides born of tides, moondrawn, myriadheaded, within her, within her blood, oinopa ponton: the winedark sea. A wet sign calls her hour, bids the earth-shaken fallen rise, bids the wet-dirt wounded rise, bids the blooddimmed peoples rise, as she radiates out, out, out, forever from her bed. The wet sign calls her hour, bids all to rise from childbed, bridebed, deathbed, rise. He comes, the pale salt vampire, in clouds and tears, and claws, battle-led, draws, battle-red, mouth-to-mouth, limb-to-limb, skin-to-skin. There.
Here.
Scarcity
Listen:
If you wait but don’t want
If you want but don’t take
If you take but don’t use
If you use but don’t care
If you care but not much
The petty demon comes.
The petty demon says:
Not all of you are wanted
Not everyone is needed
A few may be accepted
There’s scarcity, you see
There are no loaves and fishes─
Not for the likes of you─
A few baguettes for baby
Some caviar for me
There’s just enough to shit and sleep
But not enough for thee.
The petty demon shrieks:
Time is money
Sell short
Eat to win
Assume the position.
In the world
In the angry material world
There are men who are not men
Men
Whose imaginations never rise
Above the box and plane
Whose imaginations squat
Upon the positions of power.
If the petty demon bothers you
Here’s what you say
Tell him:
I don’t know about
Your lawyer’s fees
Your MDs
Your CEOs
Your deep freeze
I do know that
The blind man is perfect
That there’s more to life than irony
And squealing like a stuck pig
That the truth is hard but you can stand on it
That time isn’t money or a threat but a gift.
As you assume your position
In the world
Do not love
Men who are not men
Whose imaginations never rise
Walk tall; walk with God
Assume nothing; take a position.
560 Brooke Avenue
The walls, barbed wire, barbed, next to a
drive-by window of Burger King: Dios, is
this your way? Electric doors, opened one
at a time, they make a sound, it maddens.
All the time the boys do time, all the time
they say, “Lunacy, this is crazy, crazy mad.”
It is. “Nigga, nigga,” one boy prays, farts as
the JC twists his hand: He tries to laugh, he
cries instead, porque? Scared, so scared, his
scarred voice cracks, 15. “Nigga, ay, I here
4 murder,” he lies. O child, perhaps so. My
Jesus of the got-nailed, my Angel of the why,
& what could you have done yet, why are you
here, porque, my God, & donde vamos, u & I?
Vive L’Égypte
A man, beaten — face the color of a burkha
dragged through the mud — is lifted by Isis
with her rose and her tiet.
Isis, who loves mothers, the downtrodden, slaves —
who is friend to the Nile and the dead —
who listens
even to the prayers of the rich — lifts his frame —
trampled and broken — from her mud.
Allahu ahkbar! he cries.
She cries. Cairo — Sharm El-Sheikh — Alexandria —
Hurghada — Luxor — Aswan — the blood of Isis
calls from Philae.
Speak Now
Speak now.
Darkened, once neutral air,
Skyscrapers turn,
Dream fire, and burn.
Dream fire, and burn.
Skyscrapers turn,
Darkened, once neutral air,
Speak now.
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