We talked about all sorts of things
about poets we once knew
about how expensive everything had become
and that the cat of an acquaintance
disappeared for days there was
no more proof of its existence only

in her dreams it often appeared
but always as if it belonged to someone
else a cold comfort we thought
and the story of a friend occurred
to you too complicated to
tell so it went back and forth

this standing-next-to-each-other was puzzling
random and fruitless until I
heard myself say at the end yes
see you later and we went our ways and
I know that I thought for whatever reason:
the last ride in the carriage belongs to you
from the book WHOEVER DROWNED HERE: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS / Red Hen Press
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Translating Max Sessner, I must stretch my understanding of time and be open to the possibility that past and present occur simultaneously and that things I regard as objects, inert and inanimate, are perhaps living their own lives, unimpeded by my ignorance. It takes all my translator's tools—knowledge of both languages, poetic skills, imagination—to keep these magical poems intact as I smuggle them across the border into English.
 
Headshot of Dong Li
"Dong Li on the 'Common Tongue of Poetry'"

"Poetry is everywhere and everybody has it. Often we direct our deepest feelings toward this unspeakable thing and call it poetry. Often we don't give ourselves permission to speak it out loud. But when we do, we feel utterly alive. We add our layer of skin to a language we embody and enact. We see our silhouette coming into focus in these familiar and familial words that go into and out of our body and give breath to our singular sound."

via LITHUB
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Cover of Creature
What Sparks Poetry:
Michael Dumanis on Language as Form

"What determines the facts in question is the language, as well as the constraints I place on myself as an author. This is an autobiography that is not capable of ever saying 'I' or 'me' or 'mine,' as no words it uses can begin with any letter other than A. As a result, the poem is composed almost exclusively of sentence fragments."
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