Jennifer Huang
I wear the gown wrong so I can't be touched.
But the doctor, delicate in her asking, asks me
To open. I am not accustomed to this gentle;
I crush it. It is summer here. These walls
Fluorescent white so light I can feel me burn.
The doctor and a body. The vinegar
She puts inside me. I glue a mouth
To this heart. She wants to cut me apart.
No, she wants to cut a part from me,
Hold cotton until I clot. On the wall:
Laughing child splashed by water. I am
Aware of my heart. I count my blessings:
Three missed calls, two mirrors, one bouquet.
I am numb. Then I touch some place low.
from the book RETURN FLIGHT / Milkweed Editions
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"What Novelists Can Learn From Poets"

"It felt good to not think about the project I’d been working on for years, but instead to think about the unconventional moments I found in poetry: how few words could be used to arrive at something weighty; the distinct imagery, the narrative turns, and the way bright clarity often crashes like a wave at the end, leaving behind something frothing and alive in its wake."

via LITHUB
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Cover of Wanda Coleman's pamphlet, Art in the Court of the Blue Fag, from Black Sparrow Press
What Sparks Poetry:
Dana Levin on Wanda Coleman's "The Woman and Her Thang"

"Standing at the magazine rack at Beyond Baroque, I opened Coleman’s chapbook at random and read: 'She kept it in a black green felt-lined box.' Ten monosyllabs—how I loved saying them, each one a kind of floating stone in the mouth—introducing the speaker’s 'thang': seductive and dangerous, wreaking havoc on her love life."
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18th Annual Palm Beach Poetry Festival
January 10-15, 2022

We are pledged to create an extraordinary week of virtual poetry workshops and events for you in the safety of your home.
 
Workshop Faculty: Kim Addonizio, Laure-Anne Bosselaar, Chard deNiord, Mark Doty, Yona Harvey, John Murillo, Matthew Olzmann and Diane Seuss. One-On-One Conferences with Lorna Blake, Sally Bliumis Dunn, Nickole Brown, Jessica Jacobs, and Angela Narciso Torres. A special Craft Talk by Kwame Dawes. Special Guest Poet: Yusef Komunyakaa. Poet-at-Large: Aimee Nezhukumatathil.
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