from “Mount Carmel and the Blood of Parnassus" by Anaïs Duplan

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend November 2, 2016   from "Mount Carmel and the Blood of Parnassus"   Anaïs Duplan

Let us enter this again. In the context of this paragraph, we are hurtling backward through space, toward a small opening: I press my hand to your lip and you bite. You bite my spine. Ben his jawline was stellar. Ben his curlicue. His cellphone iPhone. His and everyone's iPhone, in my hand, on my lap, at the mezzanine. The opera is going full speed. The soprano arrives to tell Falstaff, to tell him. I fall from a great height onto a woman's head. It splits and I become the split, standing later for a portrait. The hero of the town walks alone at night, carrying in his eye a single feather. He wears this feather in his eye as a kind of penance. For his bravery many men will die for many years to come            Copyright © 2016 Anaïs Duplan. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "This particular poem begins the series, 'Mount Carmel and the Blood of Parnassus.' Carmel is a name given to the Virgin Mary; it is also my mother's name. And I have given my father a mountain's name: Parnassus. The poem sets the stage—or quite a few stages—for the rest of the series, wherein the speaker attempts to come to understand her parents, 'falling' through stages of her memory, beginning here at the opera." —Anaïs Duplan   Anaïs Duplan is the author of Take This Stallion (Brooklyn Arts Press, 2016). She teaches at the University of Iowa and lives in Iowa City, Iowa. Poetry by Duplan   Take This Stallion (Brooklyn Arts Press, 2016)  "The Wind" by Alice Notley "Peyton Place: A Haiku Soap Opera [excerpt]" by David Trinidad "What Is a Soprano" by G. C. Waldrep Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends.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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