Status Updates From The Asking: New and Selecte...

Disbelief at continuance in the face of grief and loss, both the poet’s personal losses and loss in the world in general. A hint of defiance, though it may just be irony

Along with seasons, I’m learning that poets frequently reference the pastoral… like corncobs and horse parts. Which is a far cry from relatable for us urban humans. I get that we’re a global minority but not among the people reading published poetry in English

Glad the Climate Anthology of Depression I read earlier recommended Hirschfield to me. The word choice is exquisite, the self-searching, despair, and resilience reassuring

shelved

Been making my way through this poetry collection for 1.5 months....should finish this week

My Species

even
a small purple artichoke
boiled
in its own bitterness
and darkening
waters
grows tender,
grows tender and sweet

patience, I think,
my species

keep testing the spiny leaves

the spiny heart

The Perfection of Loss

Like a native speaker
returned
after long exile,
quiet now in two tongues.

"Wrong solitude vinegars the soul,
right solitude oils it" (224)

(from "Vinegar and Oil")

"Mysteriously they entered, those few minutes.
Mysteriously, they left.
As if the great dog of confusion guarding my heart,
who is always sleepless, suddenly slept.
It was not any awakening of the large, not so much as that,
only a stepping back from the petty" (214).

"Only then, without you, are we able to see you completely,
lie those wandering monks
who, calling nowhere home, are everywhere home" (198).

(From "To Speech: An Assay")