Anthology

Zachary Schomburg

            1980                                                                                        1

            More and More Jaguar                                                            2

            Squirrel Problem                                                                     3

Chris Anderson

            Blessing                                                                                   4

Doug Paul Case

            Love Letter to Argenta Perón                                                 5

Phillip T. Egelston

            Little Eucharist                                                                       8

Heather Cousins

            from Something in the Potato Room                                      9

Dan Chelotti

            Compost                                                                                  18

April Bernard

            Mice                                                                                        19

            Bloody Mary                                                                           20

            Anger                                                                                      23

Aase Berg translated by Johannes Görannson

            In Dovre Slate Mill                                                                 24

            Life Form                                                                                25

            X-ray                                                                                       28

John Philip Johnson

            There Have Come Soft Rains                                                 29

John Ashbery

            A Voice from the Fireplace                                                    30

            Laughing Creek                                                                      33

            The Future of the Dance                                                         35

Solmaz Sharif

            Vulnerability Study                                                                37

Lisa Ampleman

            Gilding the Lily                                                                      38

Julia Shipley

            The Archaeologists                                                                 39

Bob Hicok

            Making do                                                                               41

            What the great apes refer to as a philosophy of life               42

            A poem that wanted to be a letter but didn’t know how       44

Jamaal May

            Per Fumum                                                                              46

Betsy Andrews

            from The Bottom                                                                    48

Leila Chatti

            14, Sunday School, 3 Days Late                                            51

Marion McCready

            Wild Poppies                                                                           52

Devin Johnston

            Telephone                                                                                53

            Scavenger                                                                                55

Ashley Capps

            To the Dapple Critic                                                               56

            The Sign Said                                                                          57

            The Wedding                                                                          58

Rosanna Warren

            A Way                                                                                     59

            Graffiti                                                                                    60

Rickey Laurentiis

            Study in Black                                                                        61

            I Saw I Dreamt Two Men                                                       62

Sarah Lindsay

            Attack Underground                                                              65

Gabrielle Calvocoressi

            Captain Lovell,                                                                       67

            Captain Lovell,                                                                       69

            Captain Lovell,                                                                       70

Frank Bidart

            Phenomenology of the Prick                                                   71

            Star Dust                                                                                 73

            Mourn                                                                                     75

Dolores Hayden

            Exuberance                                                                             77

Matthew Sweeney

            Gold                                                                                        79

            The Igloo                                                                                 80

Sheryl Luna

            Shock and Awe                                                                      81

            Lowering Your Standards for Food Stamps                          82

David Dodd Lee

            Flip Book                                                                                83

            We Stay Here                                                                          84

            Estrangement                                                                          85

Rebecca Hazelton

            The New Old Real Fake Ones                                                86

Patrick Culliton

            Sleep is Mourning for the Eyes                                               87

Oliver de la Paz

            Labyrinth 39                                                                           88

            Labyrinth 41                                                                           89

Louise Glück

            The Past                                                                                  90

            A Work of Fiction                                                                  91

            Parable of the Hostages                                                          92

Samiya Bashir

            Carnot Cycle                                                                           94

Matthew Zapruder

            American Singer                                                                     95

            Poem for Bill Cassidy                                                             99

Mark Bibbins

            Factory                                                                                    103

Chase Twichell

            Pine                                                                                         105

            Wild Mare                                                                               106

            Horse                                                                                       107

Karen An-Hwei Lee

            On Hierophany                                                                       108

Joshua Mehigan

            The Fair                                                                                   109

Tom Sleigh

            The Animals in the Zoo Don’t Seem Worried                        110

John Gallaher

            from In a Landscape

            XII                                                                                          112

            XV                                                                                          114

            LVII                                                                                        116

Vievee Francis

            Intelligent Design                                                                   118

Joshua Corey

            Mrs. God                                                                                 119

            Animals                                                                                   121

Katharine Coles

            The Same Old Riddle                                                                         124

            Kept in Mind                                                                          125

Louise Mathias

            Mimeograph                                                                            126

            Mariposa de la Muerte                                                            127

            Snuff                                                                                       128

Phillip B. Williams

            City of Men                                                                            129

            Cocoon                                                                                    130

Casey Fagan

            County Courthouse                                                                 131

Ryan Teitman

            An Essay on Virginity                                                            132

Karen Terrey

            Tamsen Donner Commits Horrid Acts with her Husband     133

            Private Tour                                                                            134

            Each Soft Thing                                                                      136

Laura E. Miller

            Spines                                                                                      137

Clayton Michaels

            Drylung                                                                                   138

            Lazarus Species                                                                       139

            Icarus                                                                                      140

Alyssa Davis

            life/rite                                                                                     141

Abigail Zimmer

            Rite for Unmaking                                                                  143

Justin Limoli

            Maternal Red Blossoms Petalled                                            145

Franz Wright

            The Only Animal                                                                    147

            The Bird Bride                                                                        150

            Year One                                                                                 151

James Eidson

            Estate                                                                                      152

Doug Ramspeck

            Fish Bones                                                                              154

Dean Young

            Even Funnier Looking Now                                                   155

            Changing Genres                                                                    158

            The Business of Love is Cruelty                                             159

Kirk Nesset

            Room                                                                                      161

Joyelle McSweeney

            Killer Whales                                                                          162

Hailey Leithauser

            Albino                                                                                     164

Mary Ruefle

            Pipkins of the Mimulus                                                           165

            Metaphysical Blight                                                                167

            Saga                                                                

covers

Official Assignment Ranking Thing, Finally

1. “Rape Joke” by Patricia Lockwood. I tried to imagine what this was from the title but I was way off. It is far more devastating. You laugh a little uncomfortably at the beginning – the goatee, the wine coolers line, his best friend Peewee – because it’s trying to be a little bit funny, right? “Can rape jokes be funny at all, is the question.” The second person is perfect. It shows how different it is to live the event than to deal with it from the outside. This poem has such force. It really builds. I just love the voice, urgent, unapologetic. “Can any part of the rape joke be funny. The part where it ends – haha, just kidding!” The repetition of “the rape joke is” seemed too much but that’s exactly it. There’s unease everywhere in a way that is poignant to it as art and as cultural artifact.

2. “Why We Must Support PBS” by Bob Hicok. This is a poem I wouldn’t have liked two or three years ago (I would have much preferred Szybist’s pigeons) but it is adorably bizarre with an unexpectedly resonant turn at the end. The moment it captures seems so natural: something inconsequential that turns out strangely profound. Felicity stuck in your memory.

I can’t get over: “people were falling/but still laughing, falling but still believing/there was a reason to put umbrellas in their drinks,/that otherwise their drunkenness would be rained on” I am reminded of some news segment I saw (possibly on PBS?) when I was about eleven years old of some balcony collapsing at a celebration (wedding?) and dozens of people plummeting to their deaths. There was video footage of it and it was pretty traumatizing at the time. I dreamt about it. I guess this poem feels haunting to me in the same way.

3. “John Clare” by Michael Dickman. I love the strong images here – “a worm eating the dark” “They were someone’s sweethearts shitting on the sidewalk in the sun” “Ferns ferns ferns//The loves of my life” “Holes in children/Holes in trees” “And wasps/eating entire families of deer” They are almost like images in a gallery. They don’t seem disconnected but each section’s energy/action belongs firstly to itself. I guess I read them more individually than cohesively. Actually, I think I wanted something more explicit but it doesn’t need it, I just needed to go back to it. Several re-readings later, I like this piece more and more.

4. “Too Many Pigeons to Count and One Dove” by Mary Szybist. My completely uneducated reaction to this is that it is too poem-y. I guess I mean to say that it is pretty traditional in what it offers. That’s not to say that it is poorly written or unenjoyable. Comparatively, it doesn’t feel urgent or provoking in a new way like the other poems. I don’t care for the time stamp; it’s distracting and it doesn’t do anything for me to know that it has been thirteen minutes.

Everything I Know Up Until Now

I should never have trusted

that I would transcend

my small and panting mass

in a feeble grasp at the universe.

Everything up until now

came thoughtlessly –

parasitic – given the sheer

number of mosquitoes

in the world. I imagine Mary

in comic waders, in a swamp.

I contemplate survival a moment

because, I know, la vie est ailleurs.

Autocannibalism

recipe adapted from Julia Child

Preparation: The moment of self-destruction must be carefully chosen for maximum dramatic effect. If you are having a formal dinner party, it is customary to wait until after hors d’oeuvres and soup. If you are dining alone or with family, this formality need not be strictly observed, although a pleasant presentation is important all the same.

Preheat oven to 425°.

If you do not have access to a guillotine or a comically sized meat cleaver for home slaughter, any good, local butcher should gladly behead and quarter your body for you on a rusty table saw. Eviscerate and thoroughly clean lifeless corpse in cold running water until numbness sets in entirely. Rub skin and inner cavities generously with butter and season to taste with salt, pepper, garlic and marjoram.

Place corpse, breast down, in heavy roasting pan. Roast 30-45 minutes per pound, basting every 15 minutes and flipping yourself breast up halfway through cook time. Rest 10-15 minutes before carving. Serve with mushroom gravy (pg. 63), buttered peas (pg. 127) and roasted potatoes (pg. 153).

For a traditional presentation, flambé the head tableside with a good quality cognac. Replace eyes with glazed onions and serve on a bed of watercress and radish rosettes. A young, brisk chardonnay pairs perfectly with crispy flesh. However, if you intend to serve the heart (sautéed in butter and shallots) a full-bodied, semi-dry red wine will balance out the bitterness.

Save carcass scraps, liver, kidneys, soul, etc. to make a hearty stock. Boil these leftovers with celery, carrot, onion and bouquet garni until every bone is blanched and brittle and the very last morsel of humanity is sucked from the marrow. Good for lamb stew.

Straight Date

I believed so completely in words, their concision. He liked to make out behind the garage where he worked. Always in the dark, often in the snow. Wedged in the passenger seat, the heat spewed in a plume, like hell, like eternity. He started a smile & assured me, “This is a straight date.” If I was straight I wouldn’t have been there. I’d have married Erin O’Donnell. I’d still be in Tiffin. An occasional snowflake collided with the windshield & perished silently in its oily breath. How is it that anything even exists? “This is what straight guys do on dates,” he repeated to remind us somehow that we were normal.

Later, I listened to his heartbeat & thought how fickle. How there was never a moment before his body. How delicious his peculiar ribs, his tongue dislodged from his body. How his heat diffused through his clothes, so that sometimes he only existed as so much sticky flesh. How if I could I’d have crept inside his bones, near enough to be his blood. I’d have delved so straight into his marrow he’d have needed his teeth to scrape me out.