{"id":144870,"date":"2020-05-07T14:19:04","date_gmt":"2020-05-07T18:19:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=144870"},"modified":"2020-05-07T15:19:14","modified_gmt":"2020-05-07T19:19:14","slug":"poets-on-couches-jake-skeets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/05\/07\/poets-on-couches-jake-skeets\/","title":{"rendered":"Poets on Couches: Jake Skeets"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/skeets.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-144871 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/skeets-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/skeets-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/skeets-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/skeets-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>In this series of videograms, poets read and discuss the poems getting them through these strange times\u2014broadcasting straight from their couches to yours. These readings bring intimacy into our spaces of isolation, both through the affinity of poetry and through the warmth of being able to speak to each other across the distances.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/c_mcHNhF_TU\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/poetry\/2746\/horses-which-do-not-exist-alberto-rios\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Horses, Which Do Not Exist<\/a>\u201d<br \/>\nby Alberto R\u00edos<br \/>\n<em>Issue no. 101 (Winter 1986)<\/em><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The strong horseshoe shape of a horse\u2019s mouth<br \/>\nOf his teeth, set that way of a suitcase handle<\/p>\n<p>And the way a bit, in just that way, pulls him:<br \/>\nCome here to where it is I say. Like that<\/p>\n<p>A horse\u2019s mouth, and so his manner, broken<br \/>\nThose horses no longer running along the far<\/p>\n<p>Distance visible from a Tucson highway thirsty<br \/>\nStopping for water, making one of those paintings<\/p>\n<p>Living rooms wear as pendants. Those paintings<br \/>\nToo unreal, laughed at and finger-poked<\/p>\n<p>And so these horses too must be unreal,<br \/>\nA bad painting of nine,<\/p>\n<p>A pond of browning water. Birds, two kinds.<br \/>\nGrass too green\u2014spring has come this year,<\/p>\n<p>And water\u2014mountains too blue, too many shades,<br \/>\nIn the distance. And so they are, this all is\u201a<\/p>\n<p>As children say, like a dream,<br \/>\nLaughing hard at how good it seemed at the moment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Winner of a 2020 Whiting Award for Poetry, Jake Skeets is Black Streak Wood, born for Water\u2019s Edge. He is Din\u00e9 from Vanderwagen, New Mexico. He is the author of <\/em>Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers<em>\u00a0(Milkweed Editions, 2019), a National Poetry Series\u2013winning collection of poems. He holds an M.F.A. in poetry from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Skeets is a winner of the 2018 Discovery\/Boston Review Poetry Contest and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Skeets edits an online publication called\u00a0Cloudthroat\u00a0and organizes a poetry salon and reading series called Pollentongue, based in the Southwest. He is a member of Saad Bee H\u00f3zh\u01eb\u0301: A Din\u00e9 Writers\u2019 Collective and currently teaches at Din\u00e9 College in Tsaile, Arizona.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jake Skeets reads a poem by Alberto R\u00edos that approaches the Southwest\u2014a region resistant to linearity\u2014in couplets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62807],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-144870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poets-on-couches"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Poets on Couches: Jake Skeets by The Paris Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Jake Skeets reads a poem by Alberto 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