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Paul Hostovsky: More Selected Poems
168 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2026
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 3, 2026
We are the publisher, so all of our authors get five stars from us. Excerpts:
PRIVILEGE
Take, for example, the grass
in the suburbs of America,
how it forecloses the likes of
curly dock, tansy, clover,
creeping thyme,
buttercup, ragweed—
any raggedy brown
or blue or red or yellow
unruly thing
applying for entry here,
hoping to live and to flourish here—
all the so-called weeds,
all the beautiful wildflowers—
turned away, mowed down,
poisoned. And hasn’t it always
been this way, only the pure,
cropped, decorous green
grass and its offspring welcomed here?
But at what cost to all of us
this skewed sense of beauty
and propriety, this monochrome
monoculture with its monotonous
traditions of separateness
and supremacy, totally lacking
in any flavor or utility
or spirit? The dispirited grass,
asleep in its vast bed
of privilege, dreams of the invading
hordes of color, riots
of dandelion, chicory, purslane,
which all make fine eating
and live on the other side,
out in the waste places,
out along the roadsides,
not very far away
but far enough away
so that the lonely, privileged,
uninflected grass begins to feel
a profound sense of loss
and a profound sense of sadness
to think of the fine company
and the fine eating
of its despised neighbors,
all the brothers and sisters
whom it has never met
and does not know at all.
THE CALCULUS
My hygienist likes to include me
in the decision making.
“Shall we use the hand scaler
or the ultrasonic today?” she asks me.
I like the way she says “we,”
like we’re doing something intimate
and collaborative,
like building a snowman,
or more like dismantling one
after an ice storm, flake
by frozen flake. “The calculus
is caused by precipitation
of minerals from your saliva,” she explains.
“You can’t remove it with your toothbrush.
Only a professional can do that.” She’s very
professional. She doesn’t dumb it down.
“Pay more attention to the lingual side
of your mandibular anteriors,” she says.
I love it when she talks like that.
I love the names of teeth: incisor, third molar, bicuspid,
eye-tooth. Her own teeth are
virtuosic. “Calculus comes from the Greek
for stone,” she says. “In mathematics
it’s counting with stones. In medicine,
it’s the mineral buildup in the body: kidney stones,
tartar on teeth.” She teaches me all this
as I sit there with my mouth open,
looking astonished.
TRUMP INAUGURAL POEM
“FUCK YOU” is a spondee.
“FUCK you,” with the stress
on the first syllable, is a trochee
whose rejoinder is either
an iamb (“Fuck YOU”)
or an anapest (“No, fuck YOU”).
Poetic meter and poetic devices
are not only not boring, they’re
basic as breath, relevant
as politics or sex. “The dick
in the White House is not my
president,” is a good example
of synecdoche—that part of him
representing the whole of him,
who does not represent me,
who does not represent anyone
I know, who does not represent
anything I believe in—which is
not only a fact, a true fact, but also
a beautiful example of anaphora.
PRIVILEGE
Take, for example, the grass
in the suburbs of America,
how it forecloses the likes of
curly dock, tansy, clover,
creeping thyme,
buttercup, ragweed—
any raggedy brown
or blue or red or yellow
unruly thing
applying for entry here,
hoping to live and to flourish here—
all the so-called weeds,
all the beautiful wildflowers—
turned away, mowed down,
poisoned. And hasn’t it always
been this way, only the pure,
cropped, decorous green
grass and its offspring welcomed here?
But at what cost to all of us
this skewed sense of beauty
and propriety, this monochrome
monoculture with its monotonous
traditions of separateness
and supremacy, totally lacking
in any flavor or utility
or spirit? The dispirited grass,
asleep in its vast bed
of privilege, dreams of the invading
hordes of color, riots
of dandelion, chicory, purslane,
which all make fine eating
and live on the other side,
out in the waste places,
out along the roadsides,
not very far away
but far enough away
so that the lonely, privileged,
uninflected grass begins to feel
a profound sense of loss
and a profound sense of sadness
to think of the fine company
and the fine eating
of its despised neighbors,
all the brothers and sisters
whom it has never met
and does not know at all.
THE CALCULUS
My hygienist likes to include me
in the decision making.
“Shall we use the hand scaler
or the ultrasonic today?” she asks me.
I like the way she says “we,”
like we’re doing something intimate
and collaborative,
like building a snowman,
or more like dismantling one
after an ice storm, flake
by frozen flake. “The calculus
is caused by precipitation
of minerals from your saliva,” she explains.
“You can’t remove it with your toothbrush.
Only a professional can do that.” She’s very
professional. She doesn’t dumb it down.
“Pay more attention to the lingual side
of your mandibular anteriors,” she says.
I love it when she talks like that.
I love the names of teeth: incisor, third molar, bicuspid,
eye-tooth. Her own teeth are
virtuosic. “Calculus comes from the Greek
for stone,” she says. “In mathematics
it’s counting with stones. In medicine,
it’s the mineral buildup in the body: kidney stones,
tartar on teeth.” She teaches me all this
as I sit there with my mouth open,
looking astonished.
TRUMP INAUGURAL POEM
“FUCK YOU” is a spondee.
“FUCK you,” with the stress
on the first syllable, is a trochee
whose rejoinder is either
an iamb (“Fuck YOU”)
or an anapest (“No, fuck YOU”).
Poetic meter and poetic devices
are not only not boring, they’re
basic as breath, relevant
as politics or sex. “The dick
in the White House is not my
president,” is a good example
of synecdoche—that part of him
representing the whole of him,
who does not represent me,
who does not represent anyone
I know, who does not represent
anything I believe in—which is
not only a fact, a true fact, but also
a beautiful example of anaphora.
Displaying 1 of 1 review