| "The Belladonna of Sadness" by Sally Wen Mao Posted: 31 Oct 2019 03:01 AM PDT | Spring in Hell and everything's blooming. I dreamt the worst was over but it wasn't. Suppose my punishment was fields of lilies sharper than razors, cutting up fields of lies. Suppose my punishment was purity, mined and blanched. They shunned me only because I knew I was stunning. Then the white plague came, and their pleas were like a river. Summer was orgiastic healing, snails snaking around wrists. In heat, garbage festooned the sidewalks. Old men leered at bodies they couldn't touch until they did. I shouldn't have laughed but I laughed at their flesh dozing into their spines, their bones crunching like snow. Once I was swollen and snowblind with grief, left for dead at the castle door. Then I robbed the castle and kissed my captor, my sadness, learned she was not a villain. To wake up in this verdant field, to watch the lilies flay the lambs. To enter paradise, a woman drinks a vial of amnesia. Found in only the palest flowers, the ones that smell like rotten meat. To summon the stinky flower and access its truest aroma, you have to let its stigma show. You have to let the pollen sting your eyes until you close them.   Copyright © 2019 by Sally Wen Mao. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 31, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets. |
| | About this Poem "This poem grew after I watched the 1973 film by Eichii Yamamoto called Belladonna of Sadness, an animated film about a woman who gets raped and gains the magical powers of sorcery, eventually leading to her witch trial and sentence. Supposedly the film draws inspiration from Jules Michelet's 1862 book 'La Sorcière,' a history of witchcraft that looks favorably on witches as healers who go against the oppressive patriarchal powers that govern everything. Essentially, 'Belladonna' is a story of revenge. There is a scene in the movie where Jeanne, the protagonist, wakes up after making a deal with the devil and she fully expects to be in hell, and yet she actually finds herself in an idyllic paradise full of flowers, trees, and brooks—all rendered in intensely beautiful and disturbing watercolor stills and animations. In this poem, I wanted to play with the idea of this trope of transformation, witchcraft, and duality—and the feminine desire for revenge after unimaginable suffering."
—Sally Wen Mao |
| | | Sally Wen Mao is the author of Oculus (Graywolf Press, 2019) and Mad Honey Symposium (Alice James Books, 2014). She was a 2016-2017 Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library. |
| | Poetry by Mao Oculus
(Graywolf Press, 2019) |
| | "Poem for One Little Girl Blue" by June Jordan  |
"My Sadness" Campbell McGrath |
"Seer" Kwame Dawes
|
| | October Guest Editor: Oliver de la Paz Thanks to Oliver de la Paz, author of five collections of poetry, including The Boy in the Labyrinth (University of Akron Press, 2019), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month's weekdays. Read a Q&A with Paz about his curatorial approach this month and find out more about our guest editors for the year. |
| | A culture break, a source of daily renewal... If reading Poem-a-Day has become a meaningful part of your day, please consider supporting this free series with a donation. Your gift makes publishing Poem-a-Day possible. |
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| [theprettywoman] Amazing and Beautiful Photos of Various Celebrities - 31 Oct Posted: 31 Oct 2019 07:51 PM PDT Amazing and Beautiful Photos of Various Celebrities - 31 Oct
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| "Cage" by Rigoberto González Posted: 30 Oct 2019 03:00 AM PDT | In a world of loss
gratitude is what
I demand for keeping
precious catch
within my reach.
No one despises
the shepherd for
collecting his flock.
No one accuses
the watchman of
making a captive
of his charge.
I'm like a holster,
or sheath, all function
and no fury. Don't
you worry as I
swallow you whole. Those
ulcers in my gut
are only windows,
the stoma punched
in my throat is just
a keyhole. Don't be shy.
Hand me the rattle
of your aching heart
and I'll cradle you,
bird with broken wing.
Let me love you. I
will hold your brittle
bones together. I'll
unclasp your beak
so you can sing.
It's a world of always
leaving but here
you can always stay. Copyright © 2019 by Rigoberto González. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 30, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets. |
| | About this Poem "This is the closest I could get to the stark reality of children separated from their families and kept in cages. I tried other ways into the subject, but it always rang false, especially the versions I tried writing in the point of view of a child. I realized that these children have their own voices. But we are not listening. So I wrote a persona poem in which the villain tries to obscure the travesty of incarceration of minors with seductive, gas-lighting language."
—Rigoberto González |
| | | Rigoberto González is the author of five books of poetry, most recently The Book of Ruin (Four Way Books, 2019). He is Professor of English and Director of the MFA Program at Rutgers-Newark, the State University of New Jersey. He lives in New York City.  |
| | | "Let Me Try Again" by Javier Zamora |
from "I.C.E. AGE" by David Buuck |
"Divergence" by Diana Khoi Nguyen |
| | October Guest Editor: Oliver de la Paz Thanks to Oliver de la Paz, author of five collections of poetry, including The Boy in the Labyrinth (University of Akron Press, 2019), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month's weekdays. Read a Q&A with Paz about his curatorial approach this month and find out more about our guest editors for the year. |
| | A culture break, a source of daily renewal... If reading Poem-a-Day has become a meaningful part of your day, please consider supporting this free series with a donation. Your gift makes publishing Poem-a-Day possible. |
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| [theprettywoman] Daily Funny And Amazing Photos - 30 October Posted: 30 Oct 2019 10:55 PM PDT Daily Funny And Amazing Photos - 30 October
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| Halloween, Poetry of Superstition, National Native American Heritage Month Posted: 29 Oct 2019 11:33 AM PDT | | Native American Heritage Month November marks National Native American Heritage Month. To celebrate and honor Native American writers, browse our collection of essays and poems by Joy Harjo, Natalize Diaz, Michael Wasson, Sherwin Bitsui, Layli Long Soldier and more. Sherwin Bitsui will be curating our Poem-a-Day series for the month of November.  |
| | Treehouse Climate Action Prize The Treehouse Climate Action Poem Prize is given to honor exceptional poems that help make real for readers the gravity of the vulnerable state of our environment. Submit now before the November 1 deadline! |
| | October Guest Editor Thanks to Oliver de la Paz for curating our Poem-a-Day series for the month of October. Read a Q&A with him about his curatorial approach and his own work. |
| | Poetry Breaks Watch a video from the archival series "Poetry Breaks," filmed in the late 1980s and early 1990s by creator Leila Luchetti. In this video, Charles Simic reads "The Clocks of the Dead." |
| | Sponsored Content Join playwrights Jackie Sibblies Drury and Claudia Rankine in conversation around their plays Fairview and The White Card at the Center for Fiction on October 29 at 7pm. Get $15 tickets at the Center for Fiction website. |
| | | | The Academy of American Poets is supported in part by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. |
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| "Not Everybody’s Bestiary (Yet)" by Rebecca Morgan Frank Posted: 29 Oct 2019 03:00 AM PDT | Then came the soft animals, the snake
and octopus, slinking along. You've seen
the octopus as escape artist, sneaking out
of cracks and holes, hiding in a tea pot,
plotting the big adventure. Now she moves
through chemical reaction, the first soft
robot, taking to the sea. Remember
that the real thing once disassembled
her own aquarium, waiting, bemused,
in the remaining puddle, for her custodian
to come. They say it was simply curiosity.
Now imagine her robot double dismantling
at will. That which we have tried to contain,
swimming off into the deep, re-emerging
like the snake that slithers into your garden;
its trapezoidal kirigami cuts in plastic skin
keep it crawling through bursts of air.
An innocuous slinky in colorful garb,
this robot can sidewind anywhere.
Now ask why everything now harbors
a weapon in your mind—do you dread
the snake under your own bed?
Is it the real tooth and venom you fear,
or this programmed body double here?
We're told of a fall, a fault built on flesh—
the flesh of a fruit, the flesh of a woman—
now this manmade flesh, a reptilian test
of applied knowledge. Industrial sin
co-starring the latest sensation: a running
cockroach robot, sliding through cracks
to get to you, away from you, through
your walls. Extinction now eradicated,
bought: replacements on order. Enter
"Robotanica"—the world of the wild robot—
woodpecker, dragonfly, kangaroo, child—
unborn, they can all do the job. Two by two,
battery-powered to keep the world moving,
replacing their organic prototypes. Centipedes,
spiders, ants, termites, and robobees, these
are just the beginning of the evolving nation,
as if someone has decided to revise, start over.
This time using human labor, invention. Copyright © 2019 by Rebecca Morgan Frank. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 29, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets. |
| | About this Poem "I had been writing poems about medieval automata when a friend introduced me to an award-winning roboticist who kindly invited us over to dinner with his family. He showed me videos of his research and introduced me to the existence of soft robots of the sea. I began to imagine a 21st century bestiary, one populated by the strange new robot versions of natural creatures. This poem marks just the beginning—for poet, for roboticist, for the world of the future."
—Rebecca Morgan Frank |
| | | Rebecca Morgan Frank is the author of Sometimes We're All Living in a Foreign Country (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2017). She is the 2019/2020 Distinguished Visiting Writer in Poetry at Bowling Green State University, and lives in Chicago, Illinois. |
| | | "The Radio Animals" by Matthea Harvey  |
"Vestigial Bones" by Rajiv Mohabir |
"Fast" by Jorie Graham |
| | October Guest Editor: Oliver de la Paz Thanks to Oliver de la Paz, author of five collections of poetry, including The Boy in the Labyrinth (University of Akron Press, 2019), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month's weekdays. Read a Q&A with Paz about his curatorial approach this month and find out more about our guest editors for the year. |
| | A culture break, a source of daily renewal... If reading Poem-a-Day has become a meaningful part of your day, please consider supporting this free series with a donation. Your gift makes publishing Poem-a-Day possible. |
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| "My Heart like a Nation" by Philip Metres Posted: 28 Oct 2019 03:00 AM PDT | for Yehuda Amichai
You threw off your exile by clothing yourself in praise,
Yehuda, saying, my nation
is alive, Amichai, in me,
inhabiting your own body,
your mother-beloved skin.
I'm hairy like you, and afraid,
like you, I'm half-animal
and half-angel, uncertain
where my tenderness ends
and cruelty begins. We
did what we had to do,
you wrote, which in translation
reads: .
Yehuda, I want your clarity—
to love you, not close the gates
of my heart like a nation
trying to make itself a home
but winding up with a state.
Psalmist, you spoke so tenderly
of peace, but the war persists.
All I have for you is this poem:
a man photographs the sudden
undulating hills. Behind him,
a woman he loves now dreams
that their bed's legs grow roots
beneath, overnight, and spreads
a canopy of branches that shoot
pink blooms open and open,
now green with shushing leaves
that shelter and shadow the rucked
bedsheets, the branches burdened
with red apples, apples like eyes
ready to be praised
and plucked. Copyright © 2019 by Philip Metres. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 28, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets. |
| | About this Poem "My Heart Like a Nation" wrestles with the legacy and poetry of Yehuda Amichai, an Israeli poet who also served as a soldier during Israel's War of Independence, which dispossessed and exiled 750,000 Palestinians and led to the destruction of over 400 villages. In addition to working with Amichai's poems, 'My Heart' benefited from conversations with Fady Joudah, Adam Sol, and Amy Breau, on questions of colonial possession and dispossession, poetic erasure of the other, as well as acknowledging and making amends for the past. Is every Eden just someone's bulldozed home? 'My Heart' is from the forthcoming Shrapnel Maps, a book tracing the hurt and tender places of the Israel-Palestine predicament, abiding with voices and archival traces too often canceled out by political noise."
—Philip Metres |
| | | Philip Metres is the author of Shrapnel Maps (Copper Canyon, 2020). He is a professor of English and director of the Peace, Justice, and Human Rights program at John Carroll University. He lives in Cleveland, Ohio.  |
| | | "Memorial Day for the War Dead" by Yehuda Amichai |
"Things You've Never Seen" by Fady Joudah
|
"Two Countries" by Naomi Shihab Nye
|
| | October Guest Editor: Oliver de la Paz Thanks to Oliver de la Paz, author of five collections of poetry, including The Boy in the Labyrinth (University of Akron Press, 2019), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month's weekdays. Read a Q&A with Paz about his curatorial approach this month and find out more about our guest editors for the year. |
| | A culture break, a source of daily renewal... If reading Poem-a-Day has become a meaningful part of your day, please consider supporting this free series with a donation. Your gift makes publishing Poem-a-Day possible. |
| | | |   |
| [theprettywoman] Viih Tube Famous and Hottest Youtuber Photos Posted: 30 Oct 2019 05:42 AM PDT Viih Tube Famous and Hottest Youtuber Photos
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