Jerome Rothenberg

Poems and poetics

From 'Technicians of the Sacred' (expanded): Six poems of desperation by worker poet Xu Lizhi

[Originally published in China Labour Bulletin January 6, 2016]

 

I Swallowed an Iron Moon

 

I swallowed an iron moon

they called it a screw

 

I swallowed industrial wastewater and unemployment forms

bent over machines, our youth died young

 

I swallowed labor, I swallowed poverty

swallowed pedestrian bridges, swallowed this rusted-out life

Stephen Ross: 'Question Answers Question: On Ariel Resnikoff's 'Between Shades'' & other matters

Ariel Resnikoff’s poems are wide open steps sunk in whiteness: their imprints lead far beyond themselves. They lead to Krasnystaw and Tel Aviv, Philadelphia and Montreal, antiquity and modernity, and back again. This openness, this generous range, makes Between Shades an unusually companionable book of poems. “I wanted to meet you / to tell you / you didn’t know me” reads the epigraph, summing up the ethics and poetics of this  remarkable debut.

From Technicians of the Sacred (expanded): “Worawora Woman,” from Paddy Roe’s Gularabulu, talk poem with commentary

WORAWORA WOMAN                          
        (by Paddy Roe) 

Well this man proper man had two woman in camp  -

an' he's a strong man that fella well I mean he can feed that two woman -

Stu Watson: A Review of NINE by Anne Tardos

· Paperback: 148 pages

· Binding: Perfect-Bound

· Publisher: BlazeVOX [books] 

· ISBN: 978-1-60964-226-6

 

Jerome Rothenberg: Three Poems from “The Disasters of War” after Goya

He is a real man
when he murders,

is he not?

1/

 

 

Sad presentiments
of what must come
to pass   a rage
of shredded clothes 

the darkness

through which images

rain down

a ruined world