detroit
Thanks but no thanks
Thanks by W.S. Merwin Listen with the night falling we are saying thank you we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings we are running out of the glass rooms with our mouths full of food to look at the sky and say thank you we are standing by the […]
MoreWhat’s down in the basement
The Door by Franz Wright Going to enter the aged horizontal cellar door (the threshing leaves, the greenish light of the approaching storm) you suddenly notice you’re opening the cover of an enormous book. One that’s twice as big as you are— but you know all about that: […]
MoreRising from the dead
The Morning Baking by Carolyn Forche Grandma, come back, I forgot How much lard for these rolls Think you can put yourself in the ground Like plain potatoes and grow in Ohio? I am damn sick of getting fat like you Think you can lie through your Slovak? Tell filthy stories […]
MoreDreamers, approximate wait is 200 years
Harlem by Langston Hughes What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore— And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over— like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy […]
MoreI laughed, I cried, I got a mole removed
Yes, this is long. But you won’t regret taking a minute to read it. katherine with the lazy eye. short. and not a good poet. by Francine J. Harris this morning, i heard you were found in your mcdonald’s uniform. i heard it while i was visiting a lake town, where […]
MoreStanding up by sitting down
Rosa By Rita Dove How she sat there, the time right inside a place so wrong it was ready. That trim name with its dream of a bench to rest on. Her sensible coat. Doing nothing was the doing: the clean flame of her gaze carved by a camera flash. […]
MoreReciting and resuscitating old poems
If you think, as I sometimes do when a particularly arcane poem shows up in my inbox courtesy of the Academy of American Poets’ poem-a-day feature, that poetry is written by and for the same kind of people who prefer wasabi truffles to straightforward chocolate caramels; or if you think that classic poetry has as […]
MoreIf I were a bell
Variation on a Theme by Rilke by Denise Levertov A certain day became a presence to me; there it was, confronting me–a sky, air, light: a being. And before it started to descend from the height of noon, it leaned over and struck my shoulder as if with the flat of a sword, […]
MoreRunning away from dogs
Today I read an article in the latest Rolling Stone about roaming packs of wild dogs in Detroit. With little money for animal control and deserted buildings, empty lots, and a declining human population, Detroit is being overrun with stray dogs. (You can link to the article here.) The writer visits one abandoned home filled […]
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