Video poem by Terrance Hayes, directed by Radiclani Clytus
On the eve of the 157th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, National Book Award–winning poet Terrance Hayes collaborated with RoundO Films to reflect on the historical realities that preserve the Lowcountry …
Read More
Sticky Note to the Moon
What a dust bunny you are in space.
America hacked into you, put a flag on your face.
You are not the sun, duh.
You white twisty tie on a bagged day.
You …
The Murmuring Grief of the Americas
You are on the ground, wrapped in a ratty blanket at the edge of the cage. The interpreter wedges her way into the corner. She sits on her knees, brings her head to …
Read More
Harakiri
Yukio Mishima, why did you kill yourself like that? Why did you slowly plunge the sword into your insides and turn it? Why did you sit breathing in your slow death, watching your blood drain onto the floor—without …
Read More
Verge
Sanctuary of Artemis at Brauron
A prayer for daughters, for Myrto and Atalanta
τάςτεκόρας, Λιμνᾶτι, κόρᾳκόρα, ὡςἐπιεικές
Day-trip from Athens, on a day
Too fine for anyone to stay
Within the walls—and so we splurge
On time and …
Grace was walking home from a work dinner when she saw the listing. The apartment she had been renting for the last three years had just been put up for sale and now, in the window of one of the …
Read More
That satisfied public radio monotone draped me, a droning net, middlebrow and thickly self-congratulatory. I steered the Volkswagen over the culvert, splashed into the creek. It was rain-swollen, fast. I waded out and tried to hail a cab. None came, …
Read More
I’ve come to believe, after having written some myself, that every book worth half of what it’s printed on is about the true and vulgar ruination of a life. Tolstoy told me so and so did my therapist, a tall, …
Read More
Row!
My first word.
My mother heard me say it in our brick house with blue shutters in Jacksonville, Florida. She had sung me the nursery rhyme many times, pretending to paddle a boat with her arms. Four pine …
Read More
