Thirty Years of Phoenix Poets, 1983 to 2012

Thirty Years of
Phoenix Poets,
1983 to 2012 An E-Sampler The University of Chicago Press Chicago Shorts A selection of thirty-two poems from the first thirty years of the Phoenix Poets series
Compilation 2013 The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.
Chicago Shorts edition, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-226-09314-7 Contents A Charm [1983] from David Ferrys Strangers I have a twin who bears my name; Bears it about with him in shame; Who goes a way I would not go; Has knowledge of things I would not know; When I was brave, he was afraid; He told the truth; I lied; Whats sweet to me tastes bitter to him; My friends, my friends, he loves not them; I walk the daylight in his dream; He breathes the air of my nightmare. 1983 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. First Night [1983] from Alan Shapiros The Courtesy If not relaxed that night, we were, at least, not quite that nervous; awkward, yes, yet our uneasiness became a kind of ease: the way rain in the trees, after a rain, is kept by each impedimentfrom falling, as it falls. 1983 by The University of Chicago. 1983 by The University of Chicago.

All rights reserved. from The Refusal [1984] from Eleanor Wilners Shekhinah Listen: the sound of a gate creakingit is Emily, trying to leave her fathers house. It is night in New England, Amherst, where the air is purple with midnight, bewitching, a plum the heart promised, rich with juice and fit to burstbut her hand falters on the gate, her breath catches in her throat like a burr inhaled, a stuck spur of sharp steeland the sky went hard as amethyst, and like a jewel it shonegod, it shone so bright, and she turned back, and shut the gate so quietly that no oneunless it was her heard it click. 1984 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. Two Are Four [1986] from Turner Cassitys Hurricane Lamp Night without attribute, To which you bring all elements in turn: Air intermittent in your throat; Earth errant in your heart.

Bright water where your wet lips part For fire I bring you, even as you burn. 1986 by The University of Chicago Press. All rights reserved. Nocturne [1986] from Anne Winterss The Key to the City You resume your original blackout, caves, the moon huge on top of Brooklyn gazing into your face. The green aisle of Third Avenue echoes to human cries, and your skyline an Iland of plaintive musicke to the mariners ear. But is this the New World then? this floodlit canvas sailing the Hudson? Then please take us with you, wherever youre going wherever your going.

At midnight the moon comes nearer the city the skyscrapers fill with the rustling of brooms. On the landings stone watchmen stare here, in the horn of the wheat. 1986 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. from Crossing America by Bus (III) [1988] from Paul Lakes Another Kind of Travel Then the bus stops. And the passengers jostle toward the exit, stepping down into heat and noise and the pain of missed connections.

Our luggage lost, we enter empty-handed and swollen-footed, like Oedipus, into a strange city with all the weight of time and distance on us like a tragic curse, but which is merely the condition we call human, Cured by a long sleep. Which is another kind of travel. 1988 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. In The Desert [1989] from Jim Powells It Was Fever That Made The World Once in the night we were falling with the whole earth heavy beneath us away from the stars that fell toward us at the same speed into a loneliness our singularity birth gate to grave and that ungentle darkness opening gathered our falling like cupped hands. 1989 by The University of Chicago.

All rights reserved. Because I Will Be Silenced [1990] from Ha Jins Between Silences Once I have the freedom to say my tongue will lose its power. Since my poems strive to break the walls that cut off peoples voices, they become drills and hammers. But I will be silenced. The starred tie around my neck at any moment can tighten into a cobra. How can I speak about coffee and flowers? 1990 by The University of Chicago.

All rights reserved. The Affect of Elms [1991] from Reginald Gibbonss Maybe It Was So Across the narrow street from the old hotel that now houses human damage temporarily deranged, debilitated, but up and around in their odd postures, taking their meds, or maybe trading them is the little park, once a neighboring mansions side yard, where beautiful huge elm trees, long in that place, stand in a close group over the mown green lawn watered and well kept by the city, their shapes expressive: the affect of elms is of struggle upward and survival, of strengthdespite past grief (the bowed languorous arches) and torment (limbs in the last stopped attitude of writhing) while under them wander the deformed and tentative persons, accompanied by voices, counting their footsteps, exhaling the very breath the trees breathe in. 1991 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. The Museum of Natural History [1992] from W. S.

Di Pieros The Restorers Dawn rises where the great hall ends. The water holes twilight shocking pink erodes to backstage noises, shapes... The antelopes indifferent head points its antlers toward a wasp nests corrugated skull-heap. The sound track whines and mixes the varieties of minds coppery morning song. And killing ground. The numbed roar of big cats in the distance cuts through the other hunger music.

Above, a hooter ridicules creation: the thirsty me-monkey, the person snickering nervous in the tree, waiting to shimmy down and drinkfrom the clear pool, the source, the ditch. 1992 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. Lost [1993] from Christine Garrens Afterworld Some friends and I took a path to the woods where the hawk flew low and left his shadow unfolding from the muscle of my hand. In an hours time I stumbled on stones and went through the green mantle of woods. My boots were fern-covered when I walked without the weight of my pack across a bridge.

I found my friends sleeping by a pattern of water. When I went and shook them they disappeared forever into the figuring currents. 1993 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. Alive [1994] from Bruce Smiths Mercy Seat One account of growing up white male North American is listening to the timing misfire the Ford. Event after event, cloud after cloud and then my father and I get out in the rain and push.

After 1946, Alive , as Tolstoi said at an earlier hourthe shorter form of the history of privilege granted by power to pledge allegiance to something that will permit me time to write I my diary. Then the New masters me with its sensations and ticks. The beautiful engines are sadistic. Another version of what it is takes me to the movies of Hiroshima and Tet. I watch. 1994 by The University of Chicago. 1994 by The University of Chicago.

All rights reserved. from Evidence (11) [1995] from Robert Politos Doubles Dear R---- I know I should have called but for various reasons I have been feeling tired & feeling a need to see the center of things. I also havent changed my mind. Maybe youre right about some things but now I feel I want my life to be as smooth & easy as possible. I want to concentrate on digging deeper alone & not on scat tering myself around. The new career thing seems very important & exciting to me & needs attention.

I am sorry but I just couldnt face having a conversation about it all. I just didnt want to feel I was letting you down. I am tired of letting people down. Im feeling frayed & must just burrow in someplace safe. For whatever reasons thats the story. 1995 by The University of Chicago.

All rights reserved. Invocation [1996] from Tom Sleighs The Chain Spirit, in me accomplish your work the ineradicable work that even as my strength begins to fail you still build as beautifully in the approaching ruin. 1996 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. from Mens Rea (III) [1997] from Susan Hahns Confession This autumn the leaflike bundles of nerve cells in my cerebellum brittle and I have lost my balance. Purposely, Knowingly, Negligently, Recklessly, I write you this poem, send copies to your family and friends.