Natasha Rao
The initial intimacy:
Waking to parallelograms
of light

A quivering intimacy:
A leaf, outreached
to save the gleaming beetle
from drowning in the pool

The intimacy of the crowd:
Running across the platform
from local to express

Teenage intimacy:
Sharing half the bottle
then half the gum
after vomiting

Drenched intimacies:
Wrists of rain
extending from an umbrella

Shouldering
stalks of sunflowers
during the storm

Bunk bed intimacy:
The moon wrapping us
in white blankets

Listening to apples
fall in the grass outside

Gleaming intimacy:
The shock of silver
on the back molars
of a familiar mouth opened wide

A blurred intimacy:
Your forehead after
a broken fever

A slippery intimacy:
Swallowing baby squid
checking each other's tongues
for ink

Ultimate intimacy:
Moments wholly
for ourselves

Catching sight of my face
alone in the rearview mirror

Feeling for the ripeness
of plums

Sighing upward
then wiping birdshit from my hair
READ ABOUT TODAY'S POEM
Share Share
Tweet Tweet
Forward Forward
“Intimacy Fair” was written after reading Wisława Szymborska’s stunning poem, “Miracle Fair.” I was interested in thinking about the countless types of intimacy, and how we can share different sorts of closeness with other people, other creatures, and ourselves.
Color headshot of John Agard
Poet Wins BookTrust Lifetime Achievement Award 

The first poet to win this award, the Afro-Guyanese writer John Agard was recognized for his "outstanding contribution to children's literature." “By being the first poet, I’m excited, because I see it also as a mark of recognition for poetry. Because let us not forget that going right back in our evolutionary DNA, poetry was the medium of utterance, ecstasy, a lullaby, an incantation."

via THE GUARDIAN
READ ALL TODAY'S HEADLINES
Cover of Wanda Coleman's pamphlet, Art in the Court of the Blue Fag, from Black Sparrow Press
What Sparks Poetry:
Dana Levin on Wanda Coleman's "The Woman and Her Thang"

"Standing at the magazine rack at Beyond Baroque, I opened Coleman’s chapbook at random and read: 'She kept it in a black green felt-lined box.' Ten monosyllabs—how I loved saying them, each one a kind of floating stone in the mouth—introducing the speaker’s 'thang': seductive and dangerous, wreaking havoc on her love life."
READ THIS WEEK'S ISSUE
18th Annual Palm Beach Poetry Festival
January 10-15, 2022

We are pledged to create an extraordinary week of virtual poetry workshops and events for you in the safety of your home.
 
Workshop Faculty: Kim Addonizio, Laure-Anne Bosselaar, Chard deNiord, Mark Doty, Yona Harvey, John Murillo, Matthew Olzmann and Diane Seuss. One-On-One Conferences with Lorna Blake, Sally Bliumis Dunn, Nickole Brown, Jessica Jacobs, and Angela Narciso Torres. A special Craft Talk by Kwame Dawes. Special Guest Poet: Yusef Komunyakaa. Poet-at-Large: Aimee Nezhukumatathil.
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.

© 2021 Poetry Daily, Poetry Daily, MS 3E4, 4400 University Dr., Fairfax, VA 22030

Design by the Binding Agency