More on: poetry

on reading John F. Deane’s Manhandling the Deity “unholy” in the beginning ________“symphony” at the end their long joining through a gate and garden path through gorse and bog cotton and a world stilled for a second as if it had stopped breathing as if in the space between breaths the brain might float like…

Occult power of the alphabet— How it combines And recombines into words That resurrect the beloved Every time. ________Breaking open The dry bones of each Letter—seeking The secret of life That must be hidden inside. § Fate not just a pair of scissors Waiting at the end to cut the thread, But there at the…

“Great is thy faithfulness,” __Say the leaves to the light. “Oh God, my father,” __Says darkness to night. “There is no shadow,” __Says the eye to the sun. “Of turning with thee,” __As tears start to burn. “All I have needed,” __Says the sand to the storm. “Thy hand has provided,” __Say the combs to…

Today it’s like water in the ear, a slow bleed in the brain, thinking of your bones and the marrow inside them. Last night, half-awake, I leaned into the siren as it passed and thought of Coltrane writing his liner-note prayer —it all has to do with it— and listened for the drumbeat of another…

And he sent forth a raven and it went back and forth, to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth. —Genesis 8:7 To traverse open water searching for signs of life, a seabird is more suited than a land bird, which needs the trustworthy stubble of wheat fields and faithful…

In issue 87, poet Lisa Ampleman reviews three new books by Jericho Brown, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, and Rickey Laurentiis—three African American poets who each write about faith, identity, and injustice in different ways. We asked her to reflect a little on the connection between poetry, empathy, and justice. She was interviewed by Mary Kenagy Mitchell.…

The New Testament by Jericho Brown (Copper Canyon, 2014) Lighting the Shadow by Rachel Eliza Griffiths (Four Way, 2015) Boy with Thorn by Rickey Laurentiis (University of Pittsburgh, 2015) THE YOUTUBE VIDEO starts abruptly. Two Saint Louis symphony-goers stand at their seats, singing “Justice for Mike Brown is justice for us all” to the tune of…

The first time I saw Denise Levertov was in the spring of 1973. She was the Elliston Poet at the University of Cincinnati that semester, and she was standing in the aisle prior to delivering the Elliston lecture. She was bent forward talking to someone seated at the end of a row of chairs. She…

I’m going to pray with my whole body.                I don’t mean snake-handling sanctifications in a wood’s hollow nor torso-rolling,      arm-waving hollering on a carpeted aisle.                        No, God of dark matter and everything in between, I’m going to concentrate                       every particle of my being, each neuron-strumming molecule, each cell            pitching and sliding beneath…

lets go of his cane and holds with both hands the pew ahead of him. Now and then he dips down, shaking, pulls himself back up. Stands still as he can while the gospel’s read. Today the Parable of the Sower. Pastor says he thinks it’s less about what kind of soil we are— rocky,…