"Miscegenation" by Nick Laird

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend April 30, 2019   Miscegenation   Nick Laird

Even this freckle testifies to the strength of second thoughts. My family   is a poem, the clear expression of mixed feelings, and your emergent   system at five years old fires like the shoal of neon tetra kept   in the depths of a ten gallon darkness. As for infinity, it's there,   haggling with contradiction, asking each question but one.   You will find for a while there you held the exquisite to daylight   before setting it down on the baize, conquering.   Sometimes it will feel like the entire body consists of flames;   and sometimes concrete; sometimes collapsing like a waterfall   or steady as a lake of evening lapping, the midges clouding the surface.   Sometimes it will feel like air just before the air itself   turns to snow. The solution is a solution, by which I mean   lots of things dissolving to one.            Copyright © 2019 Nick Laird. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 30, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets. About This Poem   "I grew up in County Tyrone, a segregated, violent society, and hoped that Northern Ireland would become more like the rest of the world. Instead the rest of the world became more like Northern Ireland. My own family is mixed and it can be difficult to find a fit for that, particularly now, and particularly here in America. But that's all conjecture really: the poem says what it says and is a bit mysterious to me. (Also, I'd note the poem nicks and repurposes Auden's definition of poetry, 'the clear expression of mixed feelings.')" —Nick Laird   Nick Laird is the author of four poetry collections, including Feel Free, which is forthcoming from W. W. Norton in July 2019. He teaches at New York University and is Professor of Creative Writing in Poetry at the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen's University, Belfast. He lives in New York City. Poetry by Laird   Feel Free (W. W. Norton, 2019) "Nationhood" by Laura Da' "Grace" by Sarah Gambito "Managed Diversity" by Daniel Borzutsky April Guest Editor: Tracy K. Smith   Thanks to Tracy K. Smith, poet laureate of the United States and author of Wade in the Water (Graywolf Press, 2019), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month's weekdays. Read a Q&A with Smith about her curatorial 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