They turn off the lamp and its white globe glimmers
for a moment before dissolving
like a tablet in a glass of darkness. Then is lifted.
The walls of the hotel soar up into the night sky.

Their acts of passion have quieted down and they sleep
but their most secret thoughts are meeting now
like when two colors join and flow into each other
on the wet paper of a schoolboy's painting.

It's dark and quiet. But the city has drawn closer
tonight. With windows dimmed. Houses have come.
They're clustered together, waiting nearby,
a crowd with blank expressions on their faces.


Paret

De släcker lampan och dess vita kupa skimrar
ett ögonblick innan den löses upp
som en tablett i ett glas mörker. Sedan lyftas.
Hotellets väggar skjuter upp i himmelsmörkret.

Kärlekens rörelser har mojnat och de sover
men deras hemligaste tankar möts
som när två färger möts och flyter in i varann
på det våta papperet i en skolpojksmålning.

Det är mörkt och tyst. Men staden har ryckt närmare
i natt. Med släckta fönster. Husen kom.
De står i hopträngd väntan mycket nära,
en folkmassa med uttryckslösa ansikten.
from the book BLUE HOUSE: THE COLLECTED WORKS OF TOMAS TRANSTRÖMER / Copper Canyon Press
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Photo of winners of the National Book Award
Craig Santos Perez Wins 2023 National Book Award for Poetry

"Presenting the Award for Poetry was poet, editor, and jury chair Heid E. Erdrich (sister to Louise), who announced from unincorporated territory [åmot] by Craig Santos Perez (Omnidawn) as the winner. 'When I started writing, my mission was to inspire the next generation of Pacific Islanders,' said Perez, who hails from Guam, in his acceptance speech."

via PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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Cover of Bat City Review
What Sparks Poetry:
Nica Giromini on Language as Form

"What drew me to terza rima in particular is the tension, or rather disagreement, manufactured by its braided structure of rhymes. Because each stanza is interconnected with both the following and the former, the borders of the unit of the stanza start to fray. And a productive tension—one parallel to that of the competing units of sense of the line and the sentence—emerges between the units of sense of the stanza and of the poem (across stanzas)."
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