[My grandfather walked through the snow]
Cleo Qian

after Cathy Linh Che
My grandfather walked in the snow
With his green jacket
& plastic bag

On the balcony we built
a short snowman
with a cold carrot

My grandfather had a very thick
head of hair
Long eyebrows…bright eyes

He told us stories
He made us toast
He fought in the war
He knew the word “MONSTER”
And also “HELLO, EAT”

What kind of man was he
A short man
With a long walk
Good at walking
He could walk and wait
for a long time

What kind of man was he
He had brown hands
A dark mole
A deaf ear
He fought in the war
He wrote stories
Smoked cigarettes
Played solitaire
He had a green jacket

What kind of man was he
He had a secret family
He had a sharp and surreptitious
brain

What kind of man was he
Dead now
A gone man

What kind of man was he
He walked in the street below
To fill his plastic bag with snow
from the journal FOUR WAY REVIEW
READ ABOUT TODAY'S POEM
Share Share
Tweet Tweet
Forward Forward
My grandfather had a mythological stature in my life. Born to an illiterate farming family in rural China, he left home to join the People’s Liberation Army, where he learned how to write. He published several novels and essays, now lost. Through my life, he was a silent man with an intense aura, and I recall him always being in a separate room or sitting  apart at family gatherings. I trace my own writing to him. He passed away in 2020, after which I wrote a long piece about him and my grandmother.
Color photograph of the crowd in St. Mark's Church, New York, for the 2023 Annual New Year's Day Marathon of poetry and performace
"Where Poetry is Vibrantly Alive"

"We’re all here for The Poetry Project’s 49th Annual New Year’s Day Marathon, the first in-person edition since 2020. From 2 p.m. to 1 a.m., poets, novelists, singers, pianists, dancers, performance artists and others take over the sanctuary’s stage, in three-minute increments, in front of a steady crowd."

via THE WASHINGTON POST
READ ALL TODAY'S HEADLINES
Color image of the cover of the journal Copper Nickel, Fall 2022
What Sparks Poetry:
Layla Benitez-James on Two Poems by Beatriz Miralles de Imperial

"Bea has been described as 'a poet of silence, of everything unsaid which is suggested through language,' and translating these poems opened my eyes to the immense possibilities of brevity, inspiring me to begin a book-length project in small bursts. How Dark My Skin Is Left by Her Shadow taught me the strength of distillation, how intensity rises, and pressure builds when a substance is compressed."
READ THIS WEEK'S ISSUE
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.

© 2023 Poetry Daily, Poetry Daily, MS 3E4, 4400 University Dr., Fairfax, VA 22030

Design by the Binding Agency