July 2010
Suzanne Buffam's first book, Past Imperfect, was published in 2005 by House of Anansi Press. The Irrationalist, her second book, was published in the U.S. by Canarium Books and in Canada by House of Anansi Press in April 2010. She's the recipient of the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and the CBC Literary Award for Poetry, and her poems have appeared in Boston Review, A Public Space, Poetry, and many other journals. She lives in Chicago.
IF YOU SEE IT WHAT IS IT YOU SEE
I didn't look at the fire.
I looked into it.
I saw a shelf of books
Crash down and bury me
Centuries deep in red leather.
I saw a statue in a park
Visit the list here
Brian Henry is the author of six books of poetry—Astronaut (published in the U.S. and England, where it was short-listed for the Forward Prize, and also published in Slovenia in translation), American Incident, Graft, Quarantine (winner of the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award from the Poetry Society of America), The Stripping Point, and Wings Without Birds (Salt Publishing, 2010). His seventh book Lessness is forthcoming from Ahsahta Press in 2011. His poetry has been collected in many anthologies and has been translated into Croatian, Polish, Russian, Serbian, and Slovenian. He has co-edited Verse since 1995, and he co-edited The Verse Book of Interviews. His translation of the Slovenian poet Tomaž Šalamun's Woods and Chalices appeared from Harcourt in 2008, and his translation of Aleš Šteger's The Book of Things is forthcoming from BOA Editions.
EPITHALALIUM
What was I
but a cell in motion
the occasional collision
river gutter culvert
window through which I see you
the end-
point
Amy King's most recent book is Slaves to Do These Things (Blazevox), and forthcoming, I Want to Make You Safe (Litmus Press). She is currently preparing a book of interviews with the poet Ron Padgett. She also teaches English and Creative Writing at SUNY Nassau Community College and co-edits the site, Poets for Living Waters. With Ana Bozicevic, King co-curates the Brooklyn-based reading series, The Stain of Poetry.
THE MEMORY SKIN
I am opposite marriage.
My dinner cake is made
guerrilla style. Getting in
their faces sly,
shotgun raw, we spoke.
You held me well until
you closed with
the intellectual integrity
of a fucked-up life. To give
in to the grace
of a sudden condition,
that is the primacy of thought.
John Gaetano at his Apartment in Back of the Yards, Chicago, 2010
