Wayne Johns
As in a picture book, the rooms
fold in on themselves. Time
to turn the page. Low clouds pass

quick as memories, taking
and giving back the sun.
This morning, searching boxes

again for nothing particular,
for anything at all, I find the mood
ring bought as a gag gift in a gas station.

Didn't I even slip it on your finger?
I hope you found the mock proposal
charming, or at least sincere? Our union

would have still been illegal then.
The ring said you were "Very Happy."
I hope you're happy, finally unhaunted, now.

My mother used to say that—
I hope you're happy. Of course,
she meant something more like

Just look at the mess you've made!
Though she was also willing to suffer
so another might know joy. I tried it on.

The color turned "Unsettled."
Well, it is the month of your birth.
Almost time to turn back the clocks.

This afternoon, like an alarm,
a thunderstorm rolls in. And then
another sunset that stuns.
from the book ANTIPSALM / Unicorn Press
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"31 Poets Recommend 31 Poetry Books"

"Poet Nicole Sealey challenges you to read one poetry book a day this month, and Ocean Vuong, Hanif Abdurraqib, and others are here to tell you where to start... Both poets and poetry readers alike use the hashtag #TheSealeyChallenge and post photos of the books they’re reading during the month, creating a storm of poetry on social media."

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Kaveh Akbar's handwritten translation into Farsi of the final three lines of "katherine with the lazy eye. short. and not a good poet."

"When I found harris's poem, I saw myself, I saw the midwest I knew, I saw my own disregard for the interiority of others, I saw my own sloppiness. It’s a poem that performs its own searching, too—you hear the speaker reworking their language, endlessly reprocessing their positions and complicities."

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September 22 to 28, 2019

Offering small, intensive workshops in Erice, a mountaintop town overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea. Work with poetry faculty Geoffrey Brock and Patrick Phillips to receive feedback on your original poetry or poetry translated into English. Only two spots left - Apply Now!
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