To celebrate National Poetry Month and in appreciation of the many cancelled book launches and tours, we are happy to present Poetry Daily’s April Celebration: 30Presses/30Poets (#ArmchairBookFair).  Please join us for new poetry from the presses that sustain us. We thank you for reading and hope you will consider supporting poets and poetry this month, and every month. Please be well. 
William Fargason
Lord I will never have all the fruits of the spirit Lord
there is always one just out of reach when I was twelve

I asked my mother what exactly joy was but didn't

understand any words that came out of her mouth we were
in Yellowstone I would not leave the car again I was not

holy the sins of my young head each time I wanted to

look down a girl's shirt each curse word I thought but didn't
say fuck shit damn each thought sin each sin filled the backseat

like an animal I had to wrestle like the bear on the side

of the road I hung out the car window to take pictures of
the wind against my head gentle for once the fur I could almost

smell no more than eight feet away two boy body lengths

I could almost believe this closeness meant I was safe
the bear walked the cracked yellow line of the road my father

hours later pissed again I'm not having fun I should be

for how much money this cost him Lord my father stood
in the edge of the water a rainbow trout writhing between

his hands the camera flashed Lord if all light that is not you

is sin then how do I enjoy anything here there is no limit
to failure especially mine no limit to how many times

water can be frozen into snow then melted back

the water on the lodgepole pines as if it was still raining still still
I can see the lake like a window I want to roll down

the mountains the aspens in their yellow bloom

each leaf only tasted like ash on the tongue each winter
only made me want to palm the bark and recoil again

back into the belly of the ridgeline to be closer Lord to you
from the book LOVE SONG TO THE DEMON-POSSESED PIGS OF GADARA/ University of Iowa Press
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"This poem was about a trip my family took to Yellowstone when I was in middle school. I was surrounded by so much beauty for the first time, but I couldn’t enjoy any of it because I was very depressed. This was the first time I realized I had mental illness, but I didn’t know the words “depression” or “anxiety.” I didn’t have the language for the experience yet. I do now."
 
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Kiki Petronsino's White Blood: A Lyric of Virginia
Available May 5
 
“Further evidence of Kiki Petrosino’s limitless, inimitable talent.”—Terrance Hayes

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In her fourth full-length collection, Kiki Petrosino contemplates the complex legacies of slavery and discrimination in the Upper South.

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