Poetry
The Poetry of James Fenton
The Song of the General
from 2012
The moon is sharp on the blade.
The dew shines on the hill.
The heart bleeds dark
And my men lie still.
The heads on the palisades
Dried in the wind so black
Call out to the venturing foe:
Turn back, fool, turn back.
All Poetry
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No. 204 Spring 2013
Melcion Mateu, Abyss
Ange Mlinko, Wingandecoia
Tony Hoagland, White Writer
John Freeman, Beirut
Stephen Dunn, Feathers
Peter Cole, From “The Invention of Influence”
Frederick Seidel, Pussy Days
No. 203 Winter 2012
Steven Cramer, Lackawanna
Yasiin Bey, One Called Trill
Geoffrey Hill, Three Poems
Regan Good, The Wasps’ House
Linda Pastan, Ah, Friend
Ben Lerner, No Art
Devin Johnston, Means of Escape
No. 202 Fall 2012
August Kleinzahler, The Rapture of Vachel Lindsay
Jason Zuzga, Liquid Courage
George Seferis, Helen
No. 201 Summer 2012
Raúl Zurita, The Pacific Is the Sky
David Ferry, That Now Are Wild and Do Not Remember
Lucie Brock-Broido, Posthumous Seduction
Octavio Paz, Target Practice
John Ashbery, Three Poems
Sophie Cabot Black, Online Again
Virgil, From the 'Aeneid,' Book VI Full Text
No. 200 Spring 2012
Nicanor Parra, Defense of Violeta Parra
Sweet neighbor of the green forest
Eternal guest of April in bloom
Susan Barbour, Insomnia
I have been courting sleep
and catering to its taste in nightgowns.
Stephen Dunn, Sea Level
Down from the mountains of Appalachia
and the highs of new love
Yusef Komunyakaa, Two Poems
You huddle into a shield or breastplate,
a whisper in the dark summoning your kin
Adrienne Rich, Itinerary Full Text
Burnt by lightning nevertheless
she’ll walk this terra infinita
Rowan Ricardo Phillips, Heralds of Delicioso Coco Helado
The moods of the cantaloupe king are moods
Of the melon king in green variations.
Maureen N. McLane, Two Poems
a “beautiful day”
nothing happened
Frederick Seidel, Five Poems
The city sleeps with the lights on.
The insomniac wants it to be morning.
No. 199 Winter 2011
Gottfried Benn, Five Poems
The solitary molar of a streetwalker
whose body had gone unclaimed
Ange Mlinko, Two Poems
On leftovers ana breakfast like the spleenish wulf the wéstenas chase.
He sets out hungry, nose in the wind, up the wulfhleoþu.
Jonathan Galassi, Six Poems
I tried, and each attempt was a fiasco.
I yearned, but every love of mine was wrong.
David Wagoner, Two Poems
It means stand still. It means
stay just as sweet as you are
No. 198 Fall 2011
Meghan O'Rourke, Two Poems
Our ménage à trois by candlelight—;
the various absurdities: black lace,
Forrest Gander, Body Visible
Then he deflowers her, pulling away the greenery.
Then a blue vein thinning into a hollow.
Jeff Dolven, Two Poems
Catch! It’s a quarter, right? You got it? Good.
Now, pinch the flat between your first two fingers,
Paul Muldoon, Required Fields
Then we could ride all day and yet
not reach the farthest edge of our demesne,
Constantine P. Cavafy, In Despair
He’s gone from him forever, and ever since he’s sought
his lips on the lips of every boy he goes to bed with,
Brenda Shaughnessy, Two Poems
Feelings seem like made-up things,
though I know they’re not.
Sharon Olds, The Haircut
A year after he left I thought of the day he’d been
sick and I’d cut my then-husband’s hair
No. 197 Summer 2011
Lia Purpura, Two Poems
At your center:
spectacles to sharpen sight,
Kevin Prufer, Two Poems
In 1981
in a hotel gift shop outside Phoenix, AZ,
No. 196 Spring 2011
Various Authors, Five Poems of Kabbalah
Bring me in under your wing,
be sister for me, and mother,
Linda Gregerson, Slaters’ Measure
Beneath which the quarryman
crawls. Or rather
Stephen Dunn, Leaving the Empty Room Full Text
The door had a double lock,
and the joke was on me.
Chris Andrews, Two Poems
Sounds that came into the world in my lifetime
already sound old-fangled: dial-up modems,
Clare Rossini, The Nitro Full Text
I wanted sky. That was my ambition. And now I’m being tugged
Up a small steel mountain,
No. 195 Winter 2010
Dana Levin, In Honor of Xipe
Albert Goldbarth, Minnows, Darters, Sturgeon
Jim Moore, Blood in Our Headlights, Car Wrecked, the Boar Dead
Brian Blanchfield, Smalltown Lift Full Text
One last stop, he says. And they drive to Westside Lanes.
I grew up bowling. I don’t want to bowl. It was raining.
Damion Searls, 808 A.D. Full Text
Not too old, not young anymore,
almost three dozen years gone by.
Maureen N. McLane, Three Poems
That man over there
looking sidelong
Devin Johnston, Two Poems
I made this up from nothing.
It’s not myself I sing,
No. 194 Fall 2010
Daniel Bosch, Solutions to Autumn
Dorothea Lasky, It's a Lonely World
John Tranter, Four Poems After Baudelaire
In the good old days mutations appeared everywhere,
and every second baby was a monster.
Giacomo Leopardi, Two Poems
Young girl's song, insistent song
wafting from a hidden room and wandering
Frederick Seidel, Five Poems
The second woman shines my shoes.
The other takes my order, curtsies. Thank you, sir.
Carol Muske-Dukes, Condolence Note: Los Angeles
No. 193 Summer 2010
Deborah Pease, Self-Portrait in Iceland
Deborah Pease, Sheep in Landscape
Peg Boyers, At the Guggenheim Museum, Venice
James Longenbach, Knowledge
Ron De Maris, Old Cadillac
Julia Story, Four Poems
Cynthia Zarin, Ada Poems
Jorie Graham, Three Poems
Matthew Zapruder, Come On All You Ghosts
I heard a little cough
in the room, and turned
No. 192 Spring 2010
Chloe Honum, Fever
J. Allyn Rosser, Sore Ga, Doshita
Deborah Landau, Dear Someone Full Text
my emptiness has a lake in it deep and watery
with several temperaments milk cola beer
Sarah Cohen, The Invisible Hand
Linda Pastan, Eve on Her Deathbed Full Text
In the end we are no more than our own stories:
mine a few brief passages in the Book,
Alexander Nemser, The Encyclopedia of the Dead
Charles Simic, Six Poems
That was the year the Nazis marched into Vienna,
Superman made his debut in Action Comics,
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