Poetry

“I wish my goddamned life would quit trying to resemble a rather large, lousy novel . . .”

You’re so much fun when you’re drunk,
even though your stories don’t make any sense.
The elm trees’ leaves turned early:
autumn’s yellow pennants.

The willow spreads its leafless branches
against empty sky,
like the framework of a transparent fan.
If I’d never become your wife, perhaps
things would have been better.

From It Came from Amherst, Mildred Faintly’s just published annotated and selected poetry of Emily Dickinson. A careful reading of Dickinson makes it clear that she, far more than Poe,…

So as we look at this, we can expect something like a wound made of fire opening in the sky around this rotation here. Already a falling of frogs has begun to fill local lawns

There comes to one a certain hour
when we rise above our pride, cast it aside
like baggage we’ve carried long enough.

Tortured by a thirst that wasn’t physical,I forced myself to stagger forwardacross a sunless desert.An angel with six wings,two at his shoulders, two at hips,two at heels—a seraph, appeared to…

Now all our ghosts are leaving us,their absence neatly packedwith chilling cries and slamming doors.We lack their fuelling lack. But how, you ask, and wait, aren’t ghostsrequired to serve our…

These poems are taken from Mildred Faintly’s just-published translation of the book, available from our bookstore here. Evensong(for my little sister) Place your little hand in mine,I’m here with you,…

Heroines Winsome daughters of dreams,women with long gold hair,they stand in a circle on the shore,their stance commanding, proud. Queens of legend, queens of love,noble their brows,and noble the slope…