STEVEN ESPADA DAWSON ~

 

Elegy for the Four Chambers of my Heart

I'm always looking for a mirror

with a family inside it.

If a mirror breaks        which shard

is the family?

                        There are so many

ways to hold yourself

hostage I'm still learning

to love

            my captor.

When You Tell Me You've Grown Afraid

of the dark, it busts every lit bulb

inside me. Please —

put a flashlight in my mouth, Mom.

I will thin

                    my cheeks for you.

Let me light the way.

A River Is A Body Running

The first time I found my brother

overdosed, he looked holy. A thing

not to be touched. Yellow halo of last

night's dinner. His skin, blanched blue

fresco. Patron Saint of Smack. A cop,

flustered tugged up his shorts, plunged

a needle into a pale thigh. He hissed

awake like a soda can. The paramedic

spoke softly in his ear like a lover,

asked him what color yellow and red

make. What is the difference between

a lake and a river? In the corner

I whittle that used syringe into

an instrument only I can play.

Elegy for the Four Chambers of My Mother's Heart

This is an elegy and believe me, it will end

within the small walls of your townhome.

And because I am selfish it ends with your

words and a memory of just you and me

standing above your kitchen sink, pouring

water into an ice cube tray. You tell me

to watch as the water fills up one corner,

then overflows into every empty square.

This, you say, this is how I love you.

_______________________________

Steven Espada Dawson

Late to the Search Party

Scribner 2025

A BOOK ABOUT RAY ~

 

R A Y   J O H N S O N

    MIT Press,2024

PHANTOMS ON THE BOOKSHELVES ~

 

R E A D   M E

     The Overlook Press

     2012

THE POSITION OF SPOONS ~

 

R E A D   M E

     Farrar, Straus, Giroux

     2024

WILLIE NELSON TONIGHT ~

 

WELDON KEES ~

M O R E 

     University of Nebraska Press

     2003

A QUEER HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY ~

 

R E A D   M E

         photo: Nan Goldin (b.1953), Jimmy Paulette on David’s Bike, 1991© Nan Goldin

THE NOTEBOOKS OF SONNY ROLLINS ~

 

R E A D   M E

   NYRB 2024

NEW! ROBIN MAGOWAN ~

 

New, perfect bound, 60 pages of poems

$16 

FRANCESCA ALBANESE ~

 

WILLIAM IRWIN THOMPSON ~

 

R E A D   M E

JOHN MARTIN, PUBLISHER ~

 

J O H N   M A R T I N

John Martin with Charles Bukowski

photo: Gerard Malanga

NESCIO'S AMSTERDAM STORIES ~

R E A D   M E 

     NYRB 

TWO-HEADED DOCTOR ~

 

R E A D   M E

     Strange Attraction Press

    MIT Press

     2024

AGNES MARTIN WITH PAINTING ~

 

R E A D   M E

                                  Agnes Martin in her studio (1960); photo by Alexander Liberman

MENG HAO-JAN ~

After Visiting Thought-Essence Monastery,

I Return with White-Cloud Wang Following

Somewhere Behind

I left that high valley long before midday,

and twilight was fading when I got home.

Looking up the mountain road, I find only

oxen and sheep.  My gaze grows reverent.

Woodcutters lose each other in darkness,

the evening chill silences a last cricket,

and I still haven't closed my bramble gate.

I keep lingering, expecting you out there.

At the Pavilion on Grand-View Mountain,

Sent to Chang Tzu-jung at Flourish Ridge

On the summit, sudden winds wild,

a cloud sails by like a startled bird.

Standing at the guardrail, I wonder:

is it old Chang coming back home?

Looking for T'eng's Old Recluse Home

Human endeavor's gone in a single morning,

and a recluse's three paths vanish in weeds.

First I hear you're resting at the Chang River,

now you're among T'ai Mountain wandering

dead. There's a pond here still tinged with ink,

but autumn's tumbled out of mountain clouds,

no hidden bones to find. You understood, hid

all beneath heaven inside all beneath heaven.

Visiting the Hermitage of Ch'an Monk Jung

In the mountaintop meditation hut — just a monk's robes.

And outside windows, no one. Birds at the stream take flight.

Yellow dusk stretching half-way down the mountain road,

I hear cascades in love with kingfisher-greens gone dark.

Gathering Firewood

Gathering firewood I enter mountain depths,

mountain depths rising creek beyond creek

choked with the timbers of bridges in ruins.

Vines tumble low, tangled over cragged paths,

and at dusk, scarce people grow scarcer still.

Mountain wind sweeping through simple robes,

my chant steady, I shoulder a light bundle,

watch smoke drift across open country home.

____________________

The Mountain Poems of

Meng Hao-jan

Translated by David Hinton

Archipelago Books, 2018

CRUMB ~

 

C R U M B

D A N   N A D E L   &   R A Y M O N D   F O Y E

     Scribner 2025

REPUBLIC ~

 

Backroad Chalkies

Home at Longhouse

Summer 2025

THE THEATRICAL ADVENTURES OF EDWARD GOREY ~

 

R E A D   M E

     Chronicle Books

      2024

ARTHUR RUSSELL TONIGHT ~

 

R EA D   M E

Anthology Editions

2024

JOHN LENNON TONIGHT ~

 

Nobody

Told

Me

SHIRLEY COLLINS ~

 

R E A D   M E

      White Rabbit 2022

C.D. WRIGHT ~

Light Bulb Poem

at 4 o'clock I am at the door

with a bare hand of snow

laughing shamelessly

I undo my shirt

we'll pick up at the next chapter

my beloved are the words of the rambler

if not the words the substance

the snow smeared across my front

warm to the touch

though we remain separated as if by a chair

and I unwilling to read ahead

Amarillo Poem

A room across from a sporting house.  With the dark,

I watched a woman washing the men off; then herself

she washed with a different cloth.  It was fall.  I was sitting

on my bed in my flame-proof gown.  Every morning

I had to jump aboard my suitcase to get it to close.

Poem With Some Water Damage

She kept boarders kept hens

in the heart of town

heard birds whenever I phoned

now bullhorn now chopper

someone puts a plate in her hands

hours later someone takes the plate

from her hands  Damn he says

if it ain't overcast again

Poem With A Dead Tree

it is late afternoon

she avoids looking

in its direction

she can feel

it moving toward her

in shaky black lines

Poem From The End Of Old Wire Road

hands as heavy as rocks

in the pockets of a Goodwill coat

kicking up leaves

she uncovers four trout lilies

Ah spring how it made her

want to walk backwards

or stick a fork in her side

Poem Before Breakfast

She pulled the sundress over her head

Forgetting her pants, her sandals,

And her ring.

Leaving her glasses on the sink

She unlatched the screen.

With her lunch money

Tucked in her pocket;

Her clean manila hair

Settling down her back.

She went out on her toes

To see if the painted bunting

Had fled her wedding bush.

____________________

C.D. Wright

The Essential C.D. Wright

edited by Forrest Gander & Michael Wiegers

Copper Canyon Press, 2025

HELEN GARNER'S STORY ~

 

R E A D   M E

     Pantheon 2025