This poem was written shortly after the birth of my second son, and one of the most difficult to write for many reasons. I knew I wanted to have a popinjay moth appear in the poem but for weeks, could not find a way to make it happen—until it did. This poem is found in my collection "Oceanic" (Copper Canyon 2018).
Aimee Nezhukumatathil on "Two Moths" |
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Elisa Gabbert on the Poem and the Essay
"We can only know the world through our own consciousness, our own I. But we also know that everyone else has, everyone is their own I. In a way, there is only one I. It’s a thought that I’ve been turning around in my mind for many years, and every now and then, it strikes me anew. And I see it as related to the project of my life, all this writing and reading, like all of literature or maybe all of art, all music, children’s drawings, a cave painting, is a massively diffuse expression of the general I. And I am a part of it."
viaLITHUB |
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What Sparks Poetry:
Ariana Benson on "Dear Moses Grandy, ...Love, The Great Dismal Swamp"
"The first time the land spoke to me through poetry, its message arrived in the form of a letter, not addressed to me, but from one lover to another. In “Dear Moses Grandy, …Love, the Great Dismal Swamp,” the murky, forested, ever-shrinking land of Southeastern Virginia (that was the backdrop of much of my childhood) writes to and commemorates her first lover: Moses Grandy, an enslaved man, who, in his single-person boat and with his rustic, handmade tools, carved canals out of the murk and morass that had scared many intrepid explorers away for good." |
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