Huang Fan
Translated from the Chinese by Huang Fan and Margaret Ross
I’ve never seen pigeons argue
I only see them soar
I don’t know if a pigeon is naïve or worldly
I just know it has no past to make it toil through life

Maybe they’re the tongues of the air
Lazily expressing cars’ sighs
Maybe they’re lined up on the roof
Vying to perform snow’s wedding

One day I stick my head out the window
And realize their nation is the act of soaring
Soaring makes my silence meaningless
Thank god, they’ve taught me how to talk about nations!

Standing under a flock of pigeons, I think oh
People aren’t even worth one flower blooming toward them
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Paul Muldoon on Family, Friends, and The New Yorker
 
"[Muldoon] was poetry editor of the The New Yorker magazine for 10 years...'It was a great experience in many ways but very tough. I spent most of my time saying "no" to people. Who needs that?'"

via THE IRISH INDEPENDENT
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Jennifer Chang's handwritten lines from "Meditation at Lagunitas"

"After a year of college, I knew I was not going to major in Classics (early class times), Political Science (dry texts), or Philosophy (huh?), so I signed up for a course called Contemporary American Poetry. We met in the afternoon, in a classroom dominated by a wood table that had been worn by age into a dark honey. It was shaped like a pond, a near ellipse, and how it got into the room was unfathomable to me...”
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