Poem-A-Day: Skyscraper by Matt Rasmussen

Skyscraper by Matt Rasmussen     A sword thrust  into the city.    From inside  the café, the letters    on the window  look like a new    language. It's this  simple: There is    nothing within us  like what we are    inside this window.  Colossal seppuku,    you are the sky  before the sky.        Copyright © 2013 by Matt Rasmussen. Used with permission of the author.   About This Poem "I began this poem when I lived in Boston, where our apartment had a view of the John Hancock Tower. The poem was once two separate, longer poems, one about the Hancock and one about the café, now trimmed down and mixed together. Growing up in a small town, tall buildings have always amazed me and I think the poem has its origins in my childish awe of skyscrapers. I think the poem began with a game I am constantly playing inside my head: imagine something as something else."    --Matt Rasmussen Most Recent Book by Rasmussen Black Aperture (Louisiana State University Press, 2013)              August 6, 2013 Matt Rasmussen's first collection of poems, Black Aperture (Louisiana State University Press, 2013), won the 2012 Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets. A founding coeditor of the press Birds, LLC, he teaches at Gustavus Adolphus College.   Rasmussen recently read in the Academy's Summer Reading Series.  Related Poems Glass House by Heather McHugh Steps by Grace Schulman Broadway by Mark Doty Poem-A-Day Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-A-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Browse the  Poem-A-Day Archive.     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.

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