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I will not be born for another nine years.

It is my father's first foreign posting; my mother is his bride. She leaves a sprawling home in Calcutta and fifteen play-mates to take his hand, crossing black seas to go where he will go. In a house as vast as her natal home there is the two of them, a maid, a gardener's family . . . only silence speaks her language through cavernous days.

He has not learnt to woo her. They both married when told.

But one day he brings home a sari from the Parsi merchant. Look, he says, unfurling a shimmer of cloth on their bed. The rose color reminded me of you.

He is color-blind.

She sees a snot-green of silk—it reminds her of mold on damp monsoon drains.

She picks up the sari and drapes the pallu coyly over a shoulder. She looks at the ground and says, This is the most beautiful thing I have ever owned.

from the book DIALECT OF DISTANT HARBORS / CavanKerry Press
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Very rarely does a poem come fully formed, as this one did; I was at a workshop with a prompt to write about my parents before I was born. It is, of course, born from a story often told at family gatherings, but that this personal anecdote would resonate with other people has been a revelation. The line between poetry and prose is often blurry, and this poem features in "The Best Small Fictions 2019."
 
The Inside literary prize is the first major US book award to be judged exclusively by incarcerated people.
"Incarcerated People to Judge New US Literary Award"

"Freedom Reads, the National Book Foundation and the Center for Justice Innovation launched the Inside literary prize, the first major US book award to be judged exclusively by incarcerated people. The winner will be announced in June 2024. 'Through the reading and judging of leading American literary works, the competition will provide a national platform for incarcerated individuals to meaningfully participate in our shared national cultural conversation.'"

via THE GUARDIAN
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Through the generosity of Ilya Kaminsky, Poetry Daily is offering a choice of two signed, limited edition broadsides of his poem, "A Walking Man," to every donor who is able to give $100 or more between December 11 and December 31. But all donations, whether small or large, mean the world to us. Thank you for all you do for poetry.
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