Oana Avasilichioaei

Before the cataclysm

It was a structure to be clambered and surpassed. Because the pause, the fallow days. Because we wanted. The language never idle. The tide had passed, the monsoon, the hurricane; a new weather gripped the horizon.

It was magnetic and mysterious. It was to meddle. Or live trying. An artery pulsing or a
tuning fork vibrating. It had been silent, pliant. A stillness that wanted motion.

April 13, 2018

A short interview with Sachiko Murakami

rob mclennan

Sachiko Murakami : photo credit: Carmel Purkis

Sachiko Murakami is the author of the poetry collections The Invisibility Exhibit (2008), Rebuild (2011), and

Poetry and activism

The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada

Jules Boykoff and Kaia Sand

A much-photographed, controversial mural by artist Jesse Corcoran at the Crying Room Gallery in Vancouver

Jules Boykoff

As a youngster I had unequivocally positive feelings about the Olympics. In part this was because I grew up in Madison, Wisconsin where winter sports were bigger than Jesus. During the 1980 Winter Olympics, which took place in Lake Placid, New York, I cheered mightily for fellow Madisonian Eric Heiden as he won five gold medals in speed skating, yelping at the tv screen as he swirled elegantly around the rink. This brought the poet out of ABC’s Keith Jackson who later described him as “a spring breeze off the top of the Rockies.” My parents even got me a stylish Eric-Heiden-esque rainbow hat, which I wore with great pride. (Later I attended Madison West High School where Heiden also went). That same Olympics the US hockey team won the so-called “miracle on ice.” The moment the hockey team won the gold-medal game is etched in the chalk and bones of my then-10-year-old mind. I remember the unbridled exhilaration pumping through my little body.

Recently in Jacket2

Wolgamot & Me: In Memoriam Keith Waldrop

Charles Bernstein

Keith Waldrop discovered John Barton Wolgamot’s 1944 poem, IN SARA, MENCKEN, CHRIST AND BEETHOVEN THERE WERE MEN AND WOMEN while browsing in a bookshop, as he recounts here. The poem was to remain a touchstone for him both its poetic power but also as a icon of how quixotic our poetic achievement are.

Excavating intimacies

A review of Siwar Masannat’s ‘cue’

Georgiana de Rham

From left to right: the cover of “cue,” Siwar Masannat.

Siwar Masannat is a Jordanian writer, poet, educator, and editor currently based in Milwaukee. cue, Masannat’s second book of poetry, emerges from her engagement with Akram Zaatari’s project Hashem El Madani: Studio Practices, which brought El Madani’s compelling photographs of community members in Saida, Lebanon, to a global audience.

cue
Siwar Masannat
University of Georgia Press 2024, 82 pages, $19.95, ISBN 9780820365978

Your voice in my mouth (PoemTalk #201)

Trish Salah, "The Voice" & "Detoured Come Tomorrow"

PoemTalk

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

Kay Gabriel, Syd Zolf, and Levi Bentley joined Al Filreis in the Wexler Studio of the Kelly Writers House to discuss two poems by Trish Salah. The poems can be found in Lyric Sexology Volume 1: “Interlude 4: The Voice” and “Detoured Come Tomorrow.” Lyric Sexology was published by Metonymy Press in 2017. The poems can be read HERE. Our recordings of Trish Salah performing these poems comes from an interview conducted by Christy Davids in the same Wexler Studio February 10, 2017. You can hear the poems and the entire conversation at Salah’s PennSound page. This episode of PoemTalk was co-curated by Al Filreis and Syd Zolf.

October 22, 2024