"Fort Night" by Lisa Olstein

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend August 7, 2019   Fort Night   Lisa Olstein

The snake is a sleeve the deer   puts on, its mouth a beaded cuff   in the haze men make of morning   with each release of their fist-gripped   guns. Is this a dream of shame? Is this   a dream of potential unmet, of possibility   undone? School, no pants. Brush,   no teeth. Podium, no poems. Open door, all wall. Dear Monster,   none of the guests we disinvited arrive.   In the darkness no lion comes.            Copyright © 2019 Lisa Olstein. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 7, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets. About This Poem   "The image that set this poem in motion came from a video I happened upon online when I should have been sleeping: a large snake slowly swallowing a doe, some hunters standing around watching, all of it impossible-seeming and saturated in a dream-like way. I'm intrigued by dream logic in a very concrete sense: by the recurring dreams that inhabit us particularly but that many of us share, by the taxonomies and associative architectures dreams reveal, and by instances when waking life is uncannily dream-like not in the sense of a watered down adjective for soft-focus or aspirational, but as enacted and unnerving portraits, portals, inventions. I wanted this poem to both explore and manifest some of those questions and qualities." —Lisa Olstein   Lisa Olstein is the author four poetry collections, most recently Late Empire (Copper Canyon Press, 2017). She is a member of the poetry faculty at the University of Texas at Austin, where she lives. Poetry by Olstein   Late Empire (Copper Canyon Press, 2017) "Bridges and Crossroads" by Kim Shuck "Animals Above Me" by Deborah Keenan "The Sleeping Husband" by Monica Ferrell August Guest Editor: Ruth Ellen Kocher   Thanks to Ruth Ellen Kocher, author of Third Voice (Tupelo Press, 2016), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month's weekdays. Read a Q&A with Kocher 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

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