The American Poetry Review November/December 2023

Animal Family There was a family of deer that looked something like us.They traveled far with a fierce sense of collective unity.Held their fearless faces absent of cosmic worry, for the most part.And yet something crept in, making the easiest partof being together a struggle. As fate would have it, they would eventuallyhave to make their way across several highways alone,not in a pack of unity or disunity, but as singular beings.The hardest part is some of them would die.Some knew they might freeze in headlightsbut survive. Some may creep across the Montana parkswithout knowing who else might be lurking.Others fell in love among the icicles of snow that dossal in sparkles.Couples, we agree, are wintery mirages unto themselves.This family, fragmented in a finitude of private loves,hid in their respective…

FIVE $10,000 PRIZES AND BOOK PUBLICATION PARTICIPATING PUBLISHERS: BEACON PRESS, AKASHIC PRESS, MILKWEED EDITIONS, PENGUIN BOOKS, UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA PRESS NOW SUBMIT ONLINE ENTRY PERIOD: January 1, 2024 through March 15, 2024 ENTRY REQUIREMENTS: Previously unpublished book-length manuscripts of poetry accompanied by a $35.00 entrance fee. Entrants must reside in the United States or be American citizens, and winners will be responsible for compliance with Internal Revenue Service guidelines. SUBMITTING: http://thenationalpoetryseries.submittable.com/submit (and/or review and follow the guidelines on our website: www.nationalpoetryseries.org) The National Poetry Series was established in 1978 to ensure the publication of five books of poetry each year. Winning manuscripts are selected through this annual open competition judged by five distinguished poets. Each winning poet receives a $10,000 cash award in addition to having his or her manuscript published…

Poetry did not save my life. It frustrates and complicates life. My emotional experience of writing a poem is akin to maneuvering tricky Venetian window blinds; I struggle. Sometimes, I must undo movement in order to make progress. I cannot articulate this. No one else can tell you or show you how to do it—you have to feel it, then it just clicks. And “success” doesn’t necessarily mean you can do it again the next time. It’s always a striving, always a surprise if it works. Poetry did not save Ariana Benson’s life, either. I know this because she told me so. The first night I met her: June 11th—inside Opening Circle, the orientation of the Cave Canem Retreat, the “Home of Black Poetry,” in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. She arrived late…

Prologue: Love Poem in the Black Field somewheres, some lifetimes ago I have run so far, so long.There is nowhere I haven’t beenBut here, in this field, a bodyLength from the ragged brinkThat gives way to forest.I collapsed here, the thin, hard slipOf me whittled at both ends.I want badly to brave thisAloneness—now, as the hoofbeats swell,Like a whip welt, around me—But I cannot. I weep for you,Clutch the hogweed, imagineIt your wrist. Likewise, the stalksRefuse to bend, even slightly, insideMy balmy grasp. O my savingGrace, my heart’s restharrow, mereThought of you dams the ploughsThat would have my head.When you arrive to pull me upFrom the mud, the salt will crumbleFrom my eyes; my eyesThat, for nights, have seenNothing, save that cardinalNorth from which the stars beckon;Those stars that, like…

I Am loved best. Words I have neversaid. New sentence, at 80. Of coursenot more than his children, and their children. That goeswithout saying—but I want to lay down eachelement of love’s house. First,the hole, under—apple cellar, potato cellar,cellar to hide in—and then the foundation,post and beam, and raise the newwalls of light replacing the walls ofshadow we had held up between us. Now,doors of light, windows of light—not yet the roof, like the earth on top of thecoffin lid, in this world of sweetdirt, and whatever comes after, if anythingcomes after. I am loved best by the oneI love best—of course not more than my childrenand their children, that goes without saying. And it’s notlike winning anything, it’s not better than,it’s not like sex, though something like just after—holding,…

A Catalog of How Are You Doings There’s the ones you get from cashiers,acquaintance coworkers, the husbandsof your wife’s childhood friends—they say it like tearing the last yellow pagefrom a pack of construction paper,not your first choice, the ink runs,you know whatever you do with itit’s bound for forgetting’s garbage bin.Then there are the ones with ‘man’tacked onto the end, the old friendsreaching through telephone wiresto garland your shoulders with cigarettebreaths, and something about themfeels like ship horns sounded in the harbor,the brightest pennies in a wishing fountain,how your hands first landed on the small of a girl’s back.There’s the ones at aunt and uncle funeralsplopped like spoonfuls of mac and cheeseon a paper plate, ones like a flock of geesetaking flight after you bump into your ex.Your mother dies…