Thek by Thom Donovan

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend May 1, 2014   Thek   Thom Donovan

A more interpretable ark than this Blood is song your party Apprenticeship of what one can’t have Changed to money usury and the World what was worth having Ends up broken yesterday’s news Like the blue of earth Seen from outside atmosphere like An egg we must begin Anything can be charged with value Changed to money Madonna of A different blue Still there is not Just failure and despair in this world Corruption of the flesh, forgotten sex Still blesses our other names.              Copyright © 2014 by Thom Donovan. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “‘Thek’ was written after seeing the Paul Thek retrospective at the Whitney Museum a few years back. What was striking, among so much else in the show, were his uses of ephemeral material (newspaper, chalk, sand), as if to stage the work’s impermanence, the fact that all things will degrade, some faster than others. And this corruptibility is something I love about Thek. How it gets back to the body, grinding against the materialism of Warhol/Pop as well as the Neo-Platonism of postminimal and conceptual practices. Thek’s work I consider ethical in this regard.” —Thom Donovan   Thom Donovan is the author of The Hole (Displaced Press, 2012). He lives in Brooklyn, New York. Most Recent Book by Donovan   The Hole (Displaced Press, 2012) "Why knowing is (& Matisse's Woman with a Hat)" by Martha Ronk "The Picture of Little T. C. in a Prospect of Flowers" by Andrew Marvell "Seeing All the Vermeers" by Alfred Corn Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit poets.org   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038