University of Chicago
2021
daydreaming w/ Bob Arnold
Unrelated Future Tense
with me being a bastard
and Saigon tea will ask about my language
people will ask about bar girls
even without food in the poems
they will smell fish sauce and pho
ask about 'the war' which is to say
about men fathers and soldiers
about white Americans what
about them
about them
about white Americans what
about men fathers and soldiers
ask about 'the war' which is to say
they will smell fish sauce and pho
even without food in the poems
people will ask about bar girls
and Saigon tea will ask about my language
with me being a bastard
__________________________
Hoa Nguyen
A Thousand Times You Lose Your Treasure
Wave Books, 2021
photo ~
1956, Vinh Long province. On the back of the original photograph, for the apparent purpose of giving it to someone unnamed, it says in her handwriting as follows:
“This is a glorious time, in 1956.
In those days I was a flying motorist artist—
this is the sole memory of my life.
For my friend, to keep as a memory…
The flying motorist artist”
Her Vietnamese name was Nguyễn Anh Diệp (April 21, 1941 – June 9, 2019). When she left Vietnam for North America in 1968, she became Linda Diep Lijewski. She does not leave the photo for the friend but takes it with her.
To Santa Claus
Wustl
[1932?]
[Southampton, NY]
Dear Santa Clause please bring me a flash-light.
James Merrill
______________
A Whole World
Letters from James Merrill
edited by Langdon Hammer & Stephen Yenser
Knopf 2021
"Why are we walking here, where to? Why aren't we sleeping in a bed,
in a house, a home, in the same room together; isn't it true
that we wake and sleep simultaneously? To love? Love
requires that we be at rest, that we settle down, that we
remain in the same place; motion is loneliness."
____________________________________
TOMAS ESPEDAL
TRAMP
Seagull Books
2010, 2022
[ LISTEN ]
On of the great literary biographies
of recent times — even with
Ellmann's James Joyce and
nicely aligned in scope and
adventure with
Kenner's The Pound Era
Liveright, 2021
Spider Kiss
(2006 edition)
_______________
(original title)
1961
Think Elvis; Colonel Tom Parker
"the best novel ever written about rock 'n' roll."
Greil Marcus
Break My Heart
There are always flowers,
Love cries, or blood.
Someone is always leaving
By exile, death, or heartbreak.
The heart is a fist.
It pockets prayer or holds rage.
It's a timekeeper.
Music maker, or backstreet truth teller.
Baby, baby, baby
You can't say what's been said.
Before, though even words
Are creatures of habit.
You cannot force poetry
With a ruler, or jail it at a desk.
Mystery is blind, but wills you
To untie the cloth, in eternity.
Police with their guns
Cannot enter here to move us off our lands.
History will always find you, and wrap you
In its thousand arms.
Someone will lift from the earth
Without wings.
Another will fall from the sky
Through the knots of a tree.
Chaos is primordial.
All words have roots here.
You will never sleep again
Though you will never stop dreaming.
The end can only follow the beginning.
And it will zigzag through time, governments, and lovers.
Be who you are, even if it kills you.
It will. Over and over again.
Even as you live.
Break my heart, why don't you?
_____________________
Joy Harjo
An American Sunrise
Norton 2019