from "The Tatters" by Brenda Coultas

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend July 15, 2014   from “The Tatters”   Brenda Coultas

I can get at the drawings or language of making things: instruction manuals for building fires or cookbooks for explosives or poisons. I have found out why we stand tall and who the commanders of the great ships are. I have learned the story of the microscope and of birds which dress in blue and purple, of how to read a sea shell. I have read of Monsters of the Land and Sky, from the crumbles of a 19th century text. I commit to memory views from penny postcards of sights I’ve never seen and actions I never witnessed; like the great swans of Long Island in the wild, or the skyline of Manhattan as seen from the deck of a paddlewheel steamer. I am impressed by cancelled postcards from the plains of a sod house or from a museum of corn.            Copyright @ 2014 by Brenda Coultas. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “The Tatters began with a meditation on the perfect pigeon feathers that land on East Village sidewalks in New York. From these feathers I began to note the interactions between nature, the human world, and technology. I began to make visible the threads that connect us, city dwellers, during this transition from the past (print culture) to the uncertain future of cultural literacy and humanity.” —Brenda Coultas   Brenda Coultas is the author of The Tatters (Wesleyan University Press, 2014). She teaches at Touro College and lives in New York City. Most Recent Book by Coultas   The Tatters (Wesleyan University Press, 2014) “Cityscape 1” by Pablo Medina “Nothing Stays Put” by Amy Clampitt “Old Coat ” by Liam Rector Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends.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