Poetry

Recommendation: My recommending Mark Conway to the Emerging Writer’s issue is a bit of a farce, mostly because Mr. Conway was recommended to me first—by virtually everyone who has ever read his poetry. I first encountered Mr. Conway at the M.F.A. program at Bennington College, when rumor of his talent was whispered by an enthusiastic…

When I first read the announcement for the Ploughshares Emerging Writers Issue I immediately thought of Ted Mathys, a poet whose talent reminds one of Hart Crane, and not just because Ted is also from Ohio and now lives in New York, but because of the preternatural facility for language they share as well as…

Good luck to the one who finds the dream of a blue cave strewn with big dumb shellfish. Good luck to the one who finds the propellers, the one tentacle inscribed with prophetic runes. Good luck to the one who finds the decoder ring for which gestures mean love, run, don’t even— Say the man…

a small stream moves beneath the leaves     on the grounds of    the university       where an arrowhead or two lies underneath the tables of    foundations and off to the side, the tennis players are like bees collecting on a keeper’s mask     which is how the players look       through the windscreens’ mesh then…

Small birds, damaged by shellfire, slant against the light. “The descent of wisdom . . . ,” the dictator begins, and pauses, recalling his mother’s wine-reddened face. A residue of depression become ill will, a sensation of engorgement, and an undeveloped moment in which the    spirit stalls, falls back, and drops to its knees…

We were going toward nothing all along. Honing the acoustics, heralding the instant shifts, horizontal to vertical, particle to plexus, morning to late, lunch to later yet, instant to over. Done to overdone. And all against a pet store cacophony, the roof withstanding its heavy snow load. So, winter. And still, ambition to otherwise and…

The owl said, My son, Oak Table, your stand is strong. I have four talons on each leg, and you four talons on each leg. Our cold heavy hold holds mostly air. We are able. The table did not speak. We both make our home in the oak. My eyes glow with the glow of…

He sailed to wherever the sirens were, surviving by lashing himself to the mast. An image of stalwart resistance, or weakness. And the singers mere angels. And heaven only desire, simply the illegal. Sailed into the not-quite world. Or returned home to slay the suitors who had been feasting there for years. What about afterwards?…

Photograph found in the road: bejeweled hand gripping a limp cock. All parties suffering from lack of ambition. The hills of Tuscany won’t dapple with sunlight, and here it is nearly noon. You didn’t much want that leather jacket, the vendor didn’t really care to sell it, you hardly tried it on, he barely praised…