"There is a force that breaks the body" by Diane Seuss

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend August 31, 2017   There is a force that breaks the body   Diane Seuss

There is a force that breaks the body, inevitable, the by-product is pain, unexceptional as a rain gauge, which has become arcane, rhyme, likewise, unless it's assonant or internal injury, gloom, joy, which is also a dish soap, but not the one that rids seabirds of oil from wrecked tankers, that's Dawn, which should change its name to Dusk, irony being the flip side of sentimentality here in the Iron Age, ironing out the kinks in despair, turning it to hairdo from hair, to do, vexing infinitive, much better to be pain's host, body of Christ as opposed to the Holy Ghost, when I have been suffering at times I could step away from it by embracing it, a blues thing, a John Donne thing, divest by wrestling, then sing.            Copyright © 2017 Diane Seuss. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "This poem is from an in-progress collection of sonnets that are in some measure both traditional and improvisational. I join poets before me in thinking through the reality of pain—physical, spiritual—a subject at odds, it would seem, with the poem's playfulness. I've long been obsessed with sonnets by Donne and Hopkins, who wrestle so valiantly with suffering, and—for a while, anyway—live to sing about it." —Diane Seuss   Diane Seuss's most recent collection, Four-Legged Girl (Graywolf Press, 2015) was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her next book, Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl is forthcoming from Graywolf Press in May 2018. Seuss lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Poetry by Seuss   Four-Legged Girl (Graywolf Press, 2015) "What I'm Looking For" by Maureen N. McLane "Catastrophe Theory II" by Mary Jo Bang "SONNET (silenced)" by Olena Kalytiak Davis 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 Poem-a-Day is the only digital series publishing new, previously unpublished work by today's poets each weekday morning.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