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Cover art of Dilruba Ahmed's Dhaka Dust

Dhaka Dust

Dhaka Dust Dilruba Ahmed Graywolf Press, June 2011 88 pages $15.00 “Can’t occupy the same space at the same time,” begins the title poem of Dhaka Dust, Dilruba Ahmed’s impressive debut collection. And yet Ahmed’s work, situated across the Midwestern United States, Bangladesh, and Europe, often occupies more than one space at the same time;…

A closeup photograph of dew drops on a green leaf.

Occupational Hazard

I started writing “Occupational Hazard” eight  years ago, out at the Marin Headlands Center for the Arts. I had a bedroom/studio in an old house, former officer’s quarters, and I found myself sleepy all the time. It was so quiet, there—a break from my Tenderloin apartment in the city—and it was much easier to take…

The Ploughshares logo

Free Ploughshares, Round Six: Seamus Heaney

We’ve really enjoyed all of the great comments we’ve been receiving through this contest, and this week we’re excited to offer yet another fantastic back issue of Ploughshares to a lucky winner. It’s the all-poetry Spring 1984 issue guest edited by the Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney, and featuring work by Marilyn Hacker, Rita Dove,…

Image of a computer monitor, keyboard, and person using a mouse.

Website

I am ready to launch my website. This is not something I’ve undertaken without long consideration.  After all, what does a website have to do with my writing?  Launching a website isn’t likely to lead me to write more poems – in fact, I spent hours trying to design it when I might have been…