Book of Statues by Richie Hofmann

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend October 12, 2016   Book of Statues   Richie Hofmann

Because I am a boy, the untouchability of beauty is my subject already, the book of statues open in my lap, the middle of October, leaves foiling the wet ground in soft copper. "A statue must be beautiful from all sides," Cellini wrote in 1558. When I close the book, the bodies touch. In the west, they are tying a boy to a fence and leaving him to die, his face unrecognizable behind a mask of blood. His body, icon of loss, growing meaningful against his will.            Copyright © 2016 Richie Hofmann. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "I was eleven years old when Matthew Shepard was murdered in 1998; he died on the twelfth of October. Around the same time, I was working on a school project on Italian Renaissance sculptures, so many of which depict male nudes. These two events are linked in my mind, as I think it was the first time I began to glimpse the costs of being a body that desires." —Richie Hofmann   Richie Hofmann is the author of Second Empire (Alice James Books, 2015). He teaches at Emory University and divides his time between Atlanta and Chicago. Poetry by Hofmann   Second Empire (Alice James Books, 2015)  "Heaven for Stanley" by Mark Doty "My Lover Is a Woman" by Pat Parker "Magdalen Walks" by Oscar Wilde Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends.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

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