An old PBS broadcast about William Carlos Williams, including biography, recordings, and just a bunch of stuff.
Tag Archives: poet
Constant Reflection by Isabalino Anastasio Guzman
Constant Reflection
After reading Daniel Simko’s “Departures”
by Isabalino Anastasio Guzman
I enter you as an angel enters
a scythe. I find nothing.
The room has been replaced with
a desert of glass, some mirror
fragments, and a slash
of birds through leaves of lava
(in the distance).
A wheel of eyes revolve around
whatever is left of me;
a floating rag from an old shirt,
the still-born eye (melting),
the fat leaking from my chest.
I cannot pretend much, anymore.
To remain honest, I search
the distance for a blue sun.
Isabalino Anastasio Guzman is an aspiring full-time poet from Brooklyn, New York. The main goal in his writing is an attempt at reflecting society and the personal self, through Surrealism. He is currently working on his first book, a reflection on his struggle with his Puerto Rican heritage. Isabalino is currently published in over a dozen publications; including Big City Lit, The Same Magazine, Symmetry Pebbles, Underground Voices, Toe Good Poetry, and Shot Glass Journal.
THE BOY WITH A FEATHER by Byron Beynon
THE BOY WITH A FEATHER
by Byron Beynon
The boy has found a feather
to play with,
a new toy for imagination’s
threshold,
he is introduced to science,
gravity captured
before the fall
sticks to memory,
bold and clear
in slow motion
it meets the invisible ground
without sound,
only the child’s sweet breath
recalls that never again
will there be such innocence.
Byron Beynon lives in Swansea, Wales. His work has appeared in many
publications including London Magazine, Poetry Wales, The Summerset
Review, Agenda (UK); Quadrant (Australia) and Cyphers (Dublin). His
latest collection is Human Shores published by Lapwing Publications
(Belfast, 2012).
Barrier Island by George Bishop
Barrier Island
after a sudden loss
by George Bishop
I know the absence, the gravity
of everything unoccupied, missing
shapes that were shaped so much like
you, the permission to shift blame
seemed a given—forgiveness felt
close, close as it can come before
it can’t be trusted, believed only
by its maker. Each day an oar floats
by from the other side, fingerprints
pressed in the grain, and you know
someone’s circling somewhere
getting used to the idea of breathing
without taking a breath. The sand’s
open to every empty page, the urge
to write something drying on your
tongue—you want to describe
the bridge before it was became
unsafe, it’s wooden frame, single
lane and no weight limit. It’s hard
living when we have to leave
everything that healed behind.
George Bishop’s latest work appears in New Plains Review & Lunch Ticket. New work will be included in Naugatuck River Review and The Penwood Review. Bishop is the author of four chapbooks, most recently “Old Machinery” from Aldrich Publishing. His full length collection, “Expecting Delays” will be released by FutureCycle Press in 2013. He attended Rutgers University and now lives and writes in Kissimmee, Florida.
Poetry Reading: Keorapetse Kgositsile @poesiefestival berlin 2009
Keorapetse Kgositsile (born 1938 in Johannesburg, South Africa) is not only a poet and political activist, but was also one of the first members of the African National Congress (ANC) in the 1960s and 70s. From 1962 to 1975 he lived in exile in the USA. As a central figure among African-American poets, he was instrumental in bringing Africa into the limelight in the 1970s, as well as gaining much attention for poetry as performance. He was one of the first to overcome the gulf between African poetry and Black poetry in the USA, thus becoming one of the most important poets in the Pan-African movement. The video is showing a reading he did at poetry festival Berlin 2009, organized by Literaturwerkstatt Berlin
To the Dead Man in the Road by Sara Clancy
To the Dead Man in the Road
by Sara Clancy
Every summer in Tucson this happens,
a hazard of heat that greases the equation
of whiskey and asphalt and gives us permission
to suspend comprehension as we drive by.
We wonder at the obstruction,
as if you are roadkill, an unlucky coyote
looking for water in the jewel box
of the afternoon. Until we recognize the rumple
of clothing, the perverse angle of limbs
in the wash by El Camino del Cerro and skid
to the shoulder to call 911.
In the morning we trawl the paper
for an outcome, your name, an arrest,
the family notified, a donation in lieu of flowers
but find nothing — our curiosity
no better than a hook into the sad
anatomy of your wounds.
Sara Clancy graduated from the writer’s program at the University of Wisconsin long ago. Among other places, her poems have appeared in The Madison Review, Teemings, Houseboat and Owen Wister Review. She lives in the Desert Southwest with her husband, their dog and a 20 year old goldfish named Darryl.
Spider Solitaire by Sara Clancy
Spider Solitaire
by Sara Clancy
Against protocol, the red queen
follows the black king. The tactic
is to uncover hidden resolve and I focus
on the comforting binary
of winning. Move the three of clubs
and start a run that covers four minutes
of a difficult conversation and when I find
an ace to complete the suit
I admire the perfect array
of consequence. Yes, even as I listen
while you read me the results
of your tests, I will tick off a sensible
strategy arranged in ascending
priorities: every contingency
accounted for, every single
possible card played
Sara Clancy graduated from the writer’s program at the University of Wisconsin long ago. Among other places, her poems have appeared in The Madison Review, Teemings, Houseboat and Owen Wister Review. She lives in the Desert Southwest with her husband, their dog and a 20 year old goldfish named Darryl.
Outsourced by Joe Depczynski
Outsourced
by Joe Depczynski
Today I said to sell the car,
yesterday the bike.
Wednesday I told you
we have no money.
The mortgage will go unpaid.
Mom works like a slave,
her eyes have gone dark,
her skin pale,
and I think her soul has been boxed away
like all the Christmas ornaments.
Where is my oldest son?
He left this husk behind.
Where is my youngest son?
Drugs are a powerful thing.
My middle?
Dad, I’m right here. Now put the gun away.
Joe is a student at Southeast Missouri State University. His work can be found on
http://writefromwrong.com/
, an when he isn’t lost in textbooks, he’s thinking about touring the country on a motorcycle.
Divorce By Mathias Nelson
Divorce
By Mathias Nelson
Darkness is laid out on my brother’s couch,
eyes wide to the ceiling, listening to the house’s guts.
Children are asleep upstairs. Their fists beat the walls in dreamy anger.
I am alone downstairs. The toilet chuffs and gargles,
chuffs and gargles—I turn to it and imagine a ghost
plunging its invisible shit—a real hell that I stop by jittering the handle.
What they call dead noise. Silence brings peace, but that’s a lie.
The red, dirty panties of my brother’s wife are lying on the floor
in the shape of smiling lips. They are excited,
too much so, belonging to a woman during divorce.
They are caked like a white topped tongue, hard with pleasure.
Something has been happening, says the smell of beluga caviar
and the computer full of bearded men.
The walls moan and scratch with what they’ve seen,
paintings of nude women clawing floors,
the wife’s abstract lust. I look and think
and I feel it growing all around me
as the red eyed guinea pig watches, licking its paws
and stroking its fur
before the children wake to school.
Mathias Nelson’s first full-length collection of poetry,
Dip My Pacifier in Whiskey, is available through New York Quarterly
Books
http://www.nyqbooks.org/title/dipmypacifierinwhiskey
The Sea Monster in Holmes Bay by Sara Clancy
The Sea Monster in Holmes Bay
by Sara Clancy
Look for it from Lucy’s window
on an autumn day and what you see
instead is mist, though you are sure
the creature is more than mad
allegory, a fable passed down
between horizon and sill.
On a colder morning than this,
when traps are empty and lobster
boats disappear between tufts of sea
smoke and the sky’s indigo echo
of glassware in her cupboard,
you may see within the halo
of your rosewood telescope
the beast lift its granite back
to reveal the aberration
of Hog Island.
Sara Clancy graduated from the writer’s program at the University of Wisconsin long ago. Among other places, her poems have appeared in The Madison Review, Teemings, Houseboat and Owen Wister Review. She lives in the Desert Southwest with her husband, their dog and a 20 year old goldfish named Darryl.
