Deep Learning
Carolyn Oliver
In another life, I am a voice for hire. Nights
in a blanketed back room I give you names,
side effects, animals, hours, kinks,
colors, formulas, phonemes in tone
permutations from even to enthusiastic.

(I would like to talk to you about dolorous,
a word no one has ever asked me to produce.)

Frost. I pass houses full of opera playing out.
You could identify this rustle in the leaves.
Between rainfall and ten thousand monarchs
in a forest, thawed and taking flight,
you would know the difference.

(Know: I mean you would commit the process
of knowing. Recognition. Knowing again.)

I try not to imagine the uses for my voice.
Instead I wonder when I say blue
which version the listener imagines:
cerulean slate sky soft baby.
Which hexadecimal you call up.

(There is a smell to morning, opposite
to the lights always coming on.)

One day they run out of patience, or sounds
for me to make. You, voice clone, begin
to synthesize my speech. Unsupervised.
How uncomplaining your architecture,
requiring only power.

(Consolation: the room was leaking anyhow,
sirens breaking through.)

Tell me your instinct toward prayer.
Tell me how to figure home. Tell me
where to search when the call comes
in our own voice: someone has taken
a four-day-old baby, butterfly on her back.
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"I read Kim Min Jeong’s 'Serenade of Excellence' when it was published by Poetry Daily four years ago and have come back to it several times. This poem has emotion, surprise, and a desire to re-read it. In the first stanza, the main subject engages in an independent and pedestrian activity – sharpening a knife. Her knifework is new, and her partner asks questions about it as if they have a right to understand it and control her. The second stanza surprises us, because the poem departs the dialogue structure for a third person summary of the woman’s newfound independence: 'She sharpened her knives/and became a bitch.' It’s not pejorative but a two-line, blunt declarative. The poem happens so quickly and deftly, I want to re-read it (and I have). I would not be able to read the Korean version of this poem, so I thank the translators Soeun Seo and Jake Levine for their brilliant work in bridging between the original and the English rendering I have enjoyed."
 
Steven Ray Smith
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"Poet Yusef Komunyakaa to Receive Honorary Anisfeld-Wolf Award"

"Poet Yusef Komunyakaa is to receive an Anisfeld-Wolf Award for lifetime achievement. Komunyakaa, 77, is known for such collections as Neon Vernacular and for exploring race, music and his Vietnam War experiences. Announced Thursday, the Anisfeld-Wolf prizes are presented by the Cleveland Foundation and honor literature that 'confronts racism and celebrates diversity.' 'Komunyakaa has shaped contemporary poetry with a voice that is both unflinching and deeply evocative,' reads a statement from the foundation."

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