Praxis by Wendy Xu

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend May 27, 2016   Praxis   Wendy Xu

I had put down in writing my fear of the war   I too pined for pastoral description   The blue of the water was the blue of the world   Newness does not, for me, equal satisfaction   A finite number of concentric rings I push out into space   A tedious fabric moving through time without malice   An act of oration, rebellion, inventory, fantasy   The sound of the earth closing its one good eye over me   Imagine: you reach out towards the margin’s white hand   You do what your poems want and are clean   When you lay down your thorns you will be done   You do not take up arms against anyone            Copyright © 2016 Wendy Xu. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “This poem considers the fantasy (the myth) of writing as a politically and ethically neutral force—how seductive to imagine that the act of writing is less sticky than acts in the world. Ultimately, how flawed.” —Wendy Xu   Wendy Xu is the author of Phrasis (Fence Books, 2017). She teaches at The New School and lives in Brooklyn, New York. Poetry by Xu   Naturalism (Brooklyn Arts Press, 2015) "How I Got That Name" by Marilyn Chin "14 haiku" by Sonia Sanchez "Possum Crossing" by Nikki Giovanni Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends.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