"Carillon" by Wayne Miller

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend August 9, 2017   Carillon   Wayne Miller

Phones were ringing   in the pockets of the living and the dead   the living stepped carefully among. The whole still room   was lit with sound—like a switchboard— and those who could answer   said hello. Then it was just the dead, the living   trapped inside their bloody clothes ringing and ringing them—   and this was the best image we had   of what made us a nation.            Copyright © 2017 Wayne Miller. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "After the Pulse attack in Orlando, I read something about cell phones ringing while police and medical crews moved through the horror of the aftermath. I wanted to consider not just violence and loss, but also—in a non-judgmental way—the centrality of cell phones to contemporary life. And for a year or so the last stanza of William Matthews's 'Why We Are Truly a Nation' has been running in my head." —Wayne Miller   Wayne Miller is the author of Post- (Milkweed Editions, 2016). He teaches at the University of Colorado Denver and edits Copper Nickel. Poetry by Miller   Post- (Milkweed Editions, 2016) "The Bottom" by Denise Duhamel "The Eternal City" by Jim Simmerman "Facing It" by Yusef Komunyakaa Help Support Poem-a-Day   If you value Poem-a-Day, please consider a monthly donation or one-time gift to help make it possible. Poem-a-Day is the only digital series publishing new, previously unpublished work by today's poets each weekday morning. The free series, which also features a curated selection of classic poems on weekends, reaches 450,000+ readers daily. Thank you! 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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