I cup the frozen
body of evening,
trace the lines

that creep along
the beetle's velvet
shell. It's hard

to replicate
an insect's symmetry;
you might draw

the thing over
and over again
until there's no

light outside,
start thinking
you see

more clearly
this way. The same way
your bone marrow

emanates heat,
like the beetle's
luminescence.

I've learned
the mind is
a velvet curtain:

not all things
need heat
or light.
from the book ENGRAMS: SEVEN YEARS IN ASIA / Redhawk Publications
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Candid color photograph of a seated Alina Stefanescu
"Interview with Alina Ștefănescu"

"Against redemption, salvation, quick-fixes, and resolution, poetry permits the irredeemable. And it forces us to think about the expectations buried in language; it requires me, for example, to articulate my discomfort with the word closure, and to consider why this word connotes a sort of psychologism to me."

via MENTOR & MUSE
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Cover of Creature
What Sparks Poetry:
Michael Dumanis on Language as Form


"What determines the facts in question is the language, as well as the constraints I place on myself as an author. This is an autobiography that is not capable of ever saying 'I' or 'me' or 'mine,' as no words it uses can begin with any letter other than A. As a result, the poem is composed almost exclusively of sentence fragments."
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