DeWitt Henry recommends Contributions to Literature: A Tribute to Small Press Books by Jack Smith (Serving House Books, 2021). “Jack Smith—literary editor, novelist, critic, and philosophy teacher—recommends a league of his own, one in which I am proud to be included. Much as there was no ‘great tradition’ before the critic F. R. Leavis invented one, so here Smith…
Time doesn’t move, we move, says Tolstoy, but I am standing still in a trolley as it moves through a provincial city in the USSR—a country that no longer exists—in which two old ladies, who look just like my deceased mother, are speaking a strange mash-up of Yiddish, Ukrainian, Russian (and another language I cannot…
The first place I lived on my own was a studio apartment on 101st between Broadway and Amsterdam, with two windows that overlooked the street. The year was 1980, not long after I had graduated from college. In the late afternoon, when the sun fell slantwise on the buildings across the way, I could imagine…
Translated by Heather Green VI what do you know the air has come unstuck from uswe are here without starswhat do you know without money without firea sweaty dog in his kenneland rain under the armpitswhat do you know about it the noise liesand dies with each surprisefurniture like springtimehere he comes from far awaya…
Imagine yourself a sequoia, down to the roots, El Niñoshaking the leaves. You want to say invade instead of shake,but that doesn’t feel safe. Roots like those, they stay in the earth: so keep your breathvisual. Paint until it feels right, even if Oregon smokefloats across the Rockies to scent your hair. Your insides twist…
A horse, a horse, my dumb king for a horse. My brand-new horse—the naysaying centrist—for state senate. The suede backseat of my thousand-horsepower hearse for a spare 10,000 hoursto practice basic survival, the fine art of making a slow exit look painless. My last supper for an everlasting grain of saltto dose my days with…
After John Donne You. Gone now—to a better place, you would say, not on the earth. You are on my screen. A photo Paul took in the doctor’s office, an hour before you passed, whichI received in the security line. Writing now, in the air. Do not photograph me, please, You often said—no pictures. What…
Translated by Andrej Pleterski If I were to write she stood there,in a fast-food restaurant,ordering soft ice cream,with the nearby park in cherry blossoms,if I were to write her pink was more distinct,everywhere: the socks, the cape, the lips, the eyelids,an adorned tree with a lively past,if I were to write she had already ordered…
an ekphrastic golden mashup after Gwendolyn Brooks “We Real Cool” &Russell Lee’s April 13, 1941 photo “Negro Boys on Easter Morning” Carlos, Lee, Kendrick, Jaimey, me—oooooh, Wepooled the marble money, nickel cokes Real cool. Southside breeze, brave now, we laugh, we groove, We freeze, we grit teeth, oooooh, Ms. Brooks knew, y’all Left school. We unplug-the-kitchen-phone worried, We(I-brought-you-in-this-world)…
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