Innholdsfortegnelse for November/December 2024 i The American Poetry Review

New and Selected Poems Marie Howe W.W. Norton (2024) $28.99 In My Trade Is Mystery, Carl Phillips writes the following: “I’ve long been fascinated with the role of a first poem in a poet’s first book. It’s a bit like the literary equivalent of attending one’s first debutante ball.” Phillips explains that this first poem is how we’ve chosen to announce ourselves, deliberately and purposefully, to the world. This first poem is encoded with preoccupations, obsessions, and assertions that might either be reiterated or railed against throughout the course of subsequent books. The first poem in Marie Howe’s debut collection, The Good Thief, is “Part of Eve’s Discussion”; this squat single-sentence lyric does all the work Phillips suggests such a primary poem might. For years I assumed “Part of Eve’s…

Home again, or back here at the houseI grew up in, I see three boys on bikesleave the woods at the dead end,the sun caught in the twig branchesabove them, the winter sky breath bluegiving way to purple, then to pink—a landscape cold to the eye even if seenthrough a frame, even if seen at a distancewithout a lens. The boys almost look like us,or as we did in adolescence, Nick, me, and you,living in those woods each day after schooland through the summers, knowing every trail,every goose creek and marsh, every tree fortand hill. The silver guardrail at the dead endreflected light like an opened gate, a voicecalling us in as if someone carved a hexinto the bark of every tree, a new senseof freedom widening, or so we…

Anthem There is a sundial in downtown Kannapolisbig as an above-ground pool. I watchan ROTC senior in full regaliapractice his pivot and step, his about face;an intersection; the idea of a manmarching in time– Damascus & Damascus.Sunpunctured loblollies line the roadmarked by park benches and commemorative bricks,one among them with my sister’s address.She and her ex bought into the campaign:“Carolina RR Ranch,” it reads.They nicknamed their new home,now a no man’s land. Cat pee-stained carpetpulled up to reveal original hardwood,so many staples I was on my hands and kneeswith the hot handy man passing “fuck”between us each time a screwdrivershivved the floor or skinned a knuckle.There was a time the joke would come easily–handyman, hard wood, bow chicka wow, but nowmy peephole heart keeps the thought of uslike a stifled…

My stepfather asked for cupafter cup of hospital ice cream. He asked about my mother’sfat friend and whether watermelons weregrowing at home yet. How is Josh making outwith the balloon animals? We smiled, not sure if we shouldclarify or just go along; going along being the easiest, and mostentertaining option.And because he was dyingbecause he was sweet to the nurses and his diabetes was justhistorical record, because we loved him and wanted him happywhile he could be happy, we watched him eat cupafter cup of hospital ice cream, sacrificing not a drop, barelyletting any melt. Got anymore of that ice cream? And of courseyes they did. And Got another dish of that ice cream?You know it. How bout another one of them ice creams? Yes. Yes. Yes.Finally, anything you want,…

The big cat act was over, and The Great Wallendas were getting ready to workon the high wire. Not yet Arthur Konyot and his Hungarian Riders. Not yetLudwig Jacob emerging from the cramped quarters of his clown car. And let’ssay you and I have just wandered in from the midway with a red balloon,a monkey sewn from rabbit fur. Let’s say the circus has arrived a day latefrom Providence, the big top coated in paraffin wax to keep out the rain.Not yet the cigarette dropped outside the men’s toilets, or the match struckby a razorback livid over late pay, or the schizophrenic who would confesslater to setting the blaze at the behest of a ghost in a headdress. Not yetthe stench of burning flesh in this, another century of needless…

A Backlog on Beauty In high school my art teacher made me look at my reflection/gave me thirty minutes/to find beauty/I’ve never been able to look at myself in the mirror/againI spent five summers looking at the Texas skies/how each yearclouds outlive beauty/an old lover this weekend wrapped his legs around my torso/myfingers in his mouth/he kissed my chest/look at me babe/once I danced next to him/our bodies became waves/pulling each other into our mouths/I wish I could believe the words Maram Al-Massri wrote/everytime a man leaves me my beauty increases/increases/ a man once told Amá I would grow up to be a beautiful boy/she corrected him/handsome/I watched novelas growing up/I always paid more attention to the men & their muscular bodies/at church Iwould prayto grow into a body like…

Dear Absent, I unsubscribed from the world’sscatter shot awfulness. That’s whyI always seem so out of the loop.I scroll the internet strapped.Buckled in. Ready to ride outanything disturbingto my Cancer quintessence.That’s how I nearly missed it,the baby elephant. Hanging halfwayoff a steep cliffside. Flailing.Losing purchase at the edgeof its dewy mortality. In a 1:00 AM-WorldStar video, threateningto swell or demolish my heart.& because, dear absent, I havepictured us as kin, & can sense youare also a cautious browser,allow me to spare you:the elephant survives.Hand to God, an excavator armcareens across mountain & sky.Swoops in like a guardian angelon wings of yellow steel, liftinga giant shovel to the calf’s rear end.Levitating its hooves & swishing tailto higher ground. A glorious greenforest clearing, where the elephantcoils its trunk around the machine’sarm in…

The Listening Section Everything is easyat either endIt’s the middle And it’s all middleMy teeth are stillunbroken you will have to come closeto see Am I not the same donkeyon which you have ridden all your life?Have I treated you like this before? Here is my favorite part I’ve told this story before I knowbut this time I’m telling it now Martha’s Vineyard On which I resolve to never date men with poodleswho are richer than me. The poodles.It is the poodles who are richer. Than me.Richer,richer than me.The poodles, I mean.The poodles of men. Testimony How do children survive abuse?It’s so boring. In the end, I ama wholly seriousperson. But we are not in the end yet. Hedgie Choi received her MFA in poetry from The Michener Center at UT Austin…

unfinished America what do we see when we see unfinishedAmerica? We don’t see Indians with arrowschasing cowboys with rifles, we don’t seethe vast and rocky mountains, the northwardbreaking Alaskan seas, we see cities,their standing towers taller than any of uscould have imagined and glowing a darkorange in the setting sun. America hereis in each straightened street and two-storyhouse – each house different, with differenttrees, while inside different sets of Colonialfurniture sleep with different Italianplates, different German knives. Wild,completely wild, and no one even noticespackages of quinoa from South Americaand rice from the Po Valley. Now I amwalking, Japanese cars are passing, silentlypassing, driven by batteries from China,tires from the far side of our own river.On now and wild, irrevocably wildbrushes with bristles rising out of blueplastic and covered with homeopathictoothpaste,…

Blaspheme: a petitioning for a hit something opiate-likeblast me out of here not with a broom, swat, swatbut with a change in my brain chemistry not with a crowbaragainst my skull but a hummingbird-flutter in my veins radiating outto my exoskeleton my skin, my true love blanket of protection Blaspheme: a blast of cold air the door ajar javelin icicles againstthe skin a salaam is a supplicating bow of body fingers alightingthe forehead a gesture sans words not demonstrative of sexualdesire or obsessive love but a salutation towards treasure –within the word demonstrative is demon Ok, Ok, blaspheme means to speak irreverently about Godas in fuck you, Dad fuck you and the horse you rode in onto accurse, disparage, belittle the Divine and The Divine Miss Mto divide and conquer…

Soon it was my turn to sit with my cousin’s body. They took away my navel orange and bottle of watersince to chew and swallow were acts now impossible for the body,offensive to its state in the bardo. The lawyers were sorting through thingsin his musty apartment across town—where’s the will, the accounts,the insurance policy? He lived alone there for twenty-five years,his mother’s wig in a drawer, his father’s hat on a hook. He was a dentist but maintained the fiction of beinga business consultant in order to attend trade shows –technology, textiles, furniture, candy and toys. During the vigil, it is forbidden to fulfill a commandment,again, to avoid insulting the limited range of the dead. His place was stacked high with boxes of brochures,you could smell the mildewing paper…

Mad Lib with Anne Sexton Most eye floaters are causedby age-relatedgarages that occur asthe vodka-like substance(vitreous) inside your eyesbecomes more liquid.Microscopic gemstone jewelryoutside the cartend to clumpand can cast tiny fur coats onyour retina. The fur coats you seeare called floaters. Original text from mayoclinic.org (https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/eye-floaters/symptoms-causes/syc-20372346#:~:text=Most%20eye%20floaters%20are%20caused,tiny%20shadows%20on%20your%20retin a). On October 4, 1974, Anne Sexton died of carbon monoxide poisoning in the garage of her home in Weston, Massachusetts. Details for Leslie Cheungfor Leslie Cheung Which building.What floor. How would I get up there. Are the elevators elegant. Would there be other people. Are the buttons round. Would I have towalk past a bellhop. Would the concierge be occupied with people checking in and checking out. Arooftop. A balcony. An orange juice. The room. What’s it like. How would I get there.…

A friend of minewith autism describes his feelings as paleyellow, then electric pink. He describesoppression as shopping malls: all those lightsoverwhelming as the same -ness of days now, fluorescentwith change. Today, I think he might be teaching mehow to live without you. Morning fallsblue across the river, the fields. A white crossdrawn by a street -light in the snow is notwhere I last saw you before the snow wasirrevocable but where I left myselfnear the mouth of god to blood that river,to cobalt that sky. Chelsea Dingman is the author of Thaw (University of Georgia Press, 2017), which was selected by Allison Joseph as a winner of the National Poetry Series. Moving? Miss an issue? Please let us know. Mike Duffy The American Poetry Review 1906 Rittenhouse Square Philadelphia, PA 19103…

Snow day I set a tea kettle on top of a snowman.I’m pretending I don’t have laundry to do,that the drywall isn’t crackedin the bedroom, that I’m stillthe sixteenth inch thick bar of steelI was in my twenties, when if you bent meI sprang back to where I’d been, lonelyfor the previous condition of my existence.Snow people like meat peopleare elegies – all they do is die.At least this one is capableof a cup of tea. It’s sadbut all my snowhorses have failed,all my levitations and wings,all my attempts to feel prettyexcept when looking in the mirrorof chimney smoke on the horizon. Shake Drove home. Home home. The first home. Remembered being ten and afraid of the dark,the light, of cats and rats and mowers,threes and Qs and Zs, of…

The Alewife (Jerry) It was the summer the alewife ran aground earlyand the summer before they closedthe beaches at dusk. It was the summer after thechild nearly drowned in the quiet waters beyond the first sandbar, and it was the summer Ilost my favorite necklace to the hungrysandin the dark, whipping someone’s abandonedcharcoal grill into the sniveling waves that breached clamorously against the shore, steppingover themselves nearly, their vulgarcomplaints keeping coming, warning us to keepour feet out of their spray. And it was somany summers ago when he was still alive, Comstock,or Jerry, but really Comstock because thatwasthe street he lived on the end of, or maybe it wasin the middle, and we called each other by either a last name or street name or the name ofthe bicycles we…

Ringing Lullaby Inside this blue-blueforest and sweet oblivionof milk and stars. Your face and strangevoice come to mein dreams. Feral saint and orphandriving through death’s swarm, or morphinelike lullaby. Music, and the reverberatingchild’s white crib of night— Pink Lullaby Liquid, the godly seepof having livedalready too long. Fluorescent-pinkplastic medicinal bottlesstrewn along the floor. The etymology of trauma:the ritual of sittingon the balconycounting the hours. A silver switchblade. Rotting cherry blossoms. The golden field of girlhoodbecoming undone. Black weeds and the brownfilth of succumb and memory. The white flickerof the television setand the silence that isthe mind’s gentle breaking. Baby-blue, this roomfilled with plush animals and glassbowls of bright candy. The sharp cutsof morning. The drop backinto the feveringand infinite abyss. Below If there is a woodit is filled with lies.…

[Polaroid of] O this is so painfulthe open concave of my broken heartthis boundary-less bordera kind of abandonment momentin resurrect. I remember how your lipsfeel on my handwhen you kissed—a whole worldand nothing else. Today the workers in their workgo. Cars sound. Sirens.A whole world. A rooster outside who is confuseddoesn’t know the timeand wants to do his job well. I seize from sleep weepingand in the weepinga cluck for every sob. Is it morning is it morninga horn, your lips,an absence so immenseit swallows & swallows & swallows. Face the day with me anyway—see—what it brings. [Polaroid of] You saywhen I thinkof our relationshipit comes in flashes of hotstreaks of warmthand if I movetoo close I will burn Outside a field of pink tulipsI snip 5x5 untilmy whole kitchen…

Family History in Abstract VIII from The Philadelphia Inquirer, 14 Jul 1887, p. 4 A Carolina Romance Death of a Man Whose Life Was Blighted by Love A lie bloated in Carolina sun like a plum overripe, still clung but dreaming of release, the embrace of earth, marriage of dirt & seed. The cracked-open heart. How cleaving leads to cleaving. New tree as treasure or treason when cast in the promised season of drought. New roots to sap & strangle a life. Her life blighted by love of self & self divided & multiplied. He took for a wife a negro girl who had been his slave and reared a large family of children. She took for a life, for each life that came after, all her lye-burned & calloused…

Possession When I was young, the priest informedmy parents an old man was living inside me,and while he was not a demon, he wasbadly shaven and somewhat ill-temperedwhich perhaps explained why my deskresided in the hallway outside math class. The exorcism was mild, involving onlya little hot broth and Latin incantation,after which they were all peering at meso I pretended to cough, no more thanif a flower petal had landed on my tongue,and they said, “There now, he’s gone.” Now that badly shaven fellow’s risento the surface, like an old statue pulledfrom a river. Turns out he never left,just waited until the current left the boyupstream before showing his face,which is not ill-tempered but sadly familiar.I pretend to cough. He’s still there. What Am I Going to Do With You?…

The Book of Genesis is the story of our planet’s beginnings, of Adam and Eve, of Noah and the flood, and then it tracks the nomadic family of Abraham and his descendants, their lineages and predicaments, including their odyssey to the land of Canaan. Readers encounter both an unforgiving God and a merciful God. These dualistic principles are held together in myth and exploration where violence and celebration go hand in hand. There is betrayal, misogyny, hypocrisy, envy, and much confusion about how to live and where to go as generations of families journey forth. Poet Jessica Jacobs has written an exemplary book of poems in conversation with this first book of the Torah. unalone (Four Way Books, 2024) is a contemporary unraveling of many layers of thought and presence as…

On Memory Because today, the leaves of the black walnut tree flicker a new season’s chartreuse,Because the pelts of both my cats gleam with the sheen of cherishment,Because Halloween-cobweb clouds in the blue blue blue blue blue,Because today, the only thing that aches is my left ring-finger, above the severed wrist tendonbunched inside my palm,I’m convinced I had an idyllic childhood. And because today I got a text from my friend – his accent,even texting, is sugarcane and Homer and midnight fish and a long,shy weariness – and because he said that he’s good and his little daughter, also good,and he can’t believe it’s been so long since we were last across a cocktail from each other,I believe the world has been kinder than I’ve deserved. If you asked me…