"Sound Has Ears" by manuel arturo abreu

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend January 1, 2019   Sound Has Ears   manuel arturo abreu

In the mercy of the more hollow sister A serene fog of moons sprinkled with plum the vexed haint of Quasimoto is patient her tongue leaps from her mouth like a tombstone three times Smooth as ash her favorite word is 'apothecary' the bliss in me like the interior of a melting fear as she moves time with an even glance the boorish anvil of rain as she leads me into a gully farther into the hollow sister's carny lungs teaching me to hear in silence as hearts do            Copyright © 2019 manuel arturo abreu. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "'Sound Has Ears' imagines a journey into the body of a hollow cosmic sister, guided by a quirky witch named Quasimoto (spelled this way as a nod to American DJ and rapper Madlib's alter ego). The inward journey can serve as a dramatization of the general social need to return to embodiment, but I am more interested in this journey with respect to the title—the idea that sound itself can hear, that sensory input also senses us. Conversely, the dramatization here is of the empty center around which poles of binaries orbit, which I attempted to emphasize with 'polarized' or 'binarized' similes (living tongue moving like a tombstone, bliss felt as fear, etc). To me, there is a didactic element here, or at least an element of desire to be taught/led on the part of the lyric voice: to hear like a heart is to hear the way that sound hears." —manuel arturo abreu   manuel arturo abreu is the author of Incalculable Loss (Institute for New Connotative Action Press, 2018). They cofacilitate home school, a free pop-up art school in Portland, Oregon, where they live. Poetry by abreu   transtrender (Ugly Duckling Presse / Quimérica Books, 2016) "How I Might Sound if I Left Myself Alone" by Lisa Russ Spaar "Hesperine for David Berger" by Kazim Ali "Dear Michael (2)" by Mark McMorris January Guest Editor: TC Tolbert   Thanks to TC Tolbert, author of Gephyromania (Ahsahta Press, 2014), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month's weekdays. Read a Q&A with Tolbert about their curating approach this month and find out more about our guest editors for the year. 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