For Joe by Sandra Simonds

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend October 3, 2016   For Joe   Sandra Simonds

Locked in the beauty of the pearl, far from frail,          these people who claim to love us still they don’t give up much, do they, sealed? To eradicate class—       the looking glass of it, the complex glare: “Let me introduce xxx, impoverished poet.” Winter let up      like a terrible religion. In its wake, a politics came,       profane. You were on a train from Philly to Mass. Winter let up like bands and globes       and globules and I could feel the trade ships in my bloodstream, the blood that made me,         and I wanted to kill it        really bad like a war path. They said my poems          were a mess. Well, if that’s the case, then, go ahead. Strike one match and the mansion will go up in its own ash, in its obsession with accumulation against the glint of trees.            Copyright © 2016 Sandra Simonds. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “I was talking to my friend Joe on the phone one night (also a poet) and he told me that he was invited to give a poetry reading at a university by another poet and that poet introduced Joe to the audience as an ‘impoverished poet.’ It got me thinking about class consciousness/unconsciousness in poetry and about the class position of the poet who introduced Joe. How does hegemony assert itself both within the complex social relations of the poetry world and beyond, and how do we begin to call out and change these power structures?” —Sandra Simonds   Sandra Simonds is the author of Steal It Back (Saturnalia Books, 2015). She teaches at Thomas University and lives in Tallahassee, Florida. Poetry by Simonds   Steal It Back (Saturnalia Books, 2015)  "Aubade to Langston" by Rachel Eliza Griffiths "The Republic of Poetry" by Martín Espada "To the Fig Tree on 9th and Christian" by Ross Gay Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends.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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