☀ Today's Poem: "A Note on Solitude" Saúl Hernández

Today's Headline: "Deep Vellum Acquires U.K. Translation Publisher Fum d'Estampa"

January 19, 2025 A Note on Solitude Saúl Hernández In a Bluebonnet field in Texas, I listen to the wind shuffle through the labyrinth of stems. Everything is too blue for me. I catch grasshoppers, put them in a jar, they sing to me: Are you lonely? For the longest time I’ve wanted to be alone. Friday nights are the loneliest. I’m afraid to admit— time is killing me. Sometimes I’m so far away I forget silence is another form of living. When a winter storm hit Texas, the bluebonnet field sounded like glass. Every stem coming undone. The field was quiet then — Spring. Forgive me for I am reminded of what can revive. My parents taught me solitude is another form of survival. That’s why the grasshoppers keep to themselves. In Mexico, I’ve seen swarms of grasshoppers devour Abuelo’s milpa. I’ve seen what solitude’s hunger is capable of. I keep waiting for beauty to blossom from solitude like a burst of indigo in Spring. Before bed, I listen to the grasshoppers I catch. Vibrations of their canto echo like a llanto through my body reminding me how lonely the field must be without them. from the journal AMERICAN POETRY REVIEW READ ABOUT TODAY'S POEM Share Tweet Forward I’ve been thinking about the relationship between the south/central Texas pastoral and the fields in Mexico which my grandfather attended. Not only what grows and lives in the crevices of stems and the beauty of these lands but how these grounds have feelings too. I wrote this poem as an exercise of what shape solitude takes within these plots. Moreover, how solitude also grows within one too. Saúl Hernández on "A Note on Solitude" "Deep Vellum Acquires U.K. Translation Publisher Fum d'Estampa" "Dallas-based Deep Vellum Publishing has acquired Fum d'Estampa Press, the British small press focused on publishing literature in translation, including fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Founded in 2020 by translator Douglas Suttle, Fum d'Estampa has published 30 titles from Catalan, Spanish, French and Norwegian. Recent titles include the novel Chrysalis, Pastoral in B Minor by Susanna Rafart." viaPUBLISHER'S WEEKLY READ ALL TODAY'S HEADLINES What Sparks Poetry: Jennifer Chang on Drafts "In truth, I misremembered the statue, I misrepresent it; in my poem, there is more than one enslaved person at Lincoln’s knees. But this is not the only reason I could not get the draft right. I wanted to capture the feeling of two friends wandering in a city, the ebb and flow of their conversation. Most of all, I wanted the poem to do what letters do: bridge a distance in geography and in time: the future, the past, Washington, D.C., Texas, the thaw that makes some late winter days feel like spring." READ THIS WEEK'S ISSUE donate View in browser You have received this email because you submitted your email address at www.poems.com. If you would like to unsubscribe please click here. © 2025 Poetry Daily, Poetry Daily, MS 3E4, 4400 University Dr., Fairfax, VA 22030 Design by the Binding Agency

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