The story of the wave and child was told to me by a village woman on Lefkada, my great-grandfather’s home island. Then she gave me a beautiful nightdress that was from her grandmother’s προικα, or dowry chest. Her ancestor would have grown the flax herself, cleaned, spun, woven, and sewn it, then meticulously embroidered beautiful flowers on the nightdress. I cannot read, with fluency, my great-grandfather’s poems in Greek, but the dowry dress was given to me because of his poems and my great-grandmother’s efforts at reviving these kinds of exquisite handicrafts.
Eleni Sikelianos on "Aστυνομία Nοσοκομείο" |
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"Short Conversations with Poets: Katie Farris"
"I have learned that the right time to write love poetry to a burning world is when it is burning—and it’s always burning. Whether the world 'deserves' love is beside the point. It is the action of loving—the brave, ridiculous, absurd, delicious, silly, excruciating work of it—that answers the question why love?"
via MCSWEENEY'S |
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What Sparks Poetry:
Tiana Nobile on A. Van Jordan's M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A: Poems
"By juxtaposing the MacNolia narrative poems with snapshots of historical figures, M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A considers the ways in which racism shaped Black daily existence and one individual’s life’s trajectory. Thus, M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A is not only a story of one disenchanted woman or crushed little girl; it is the story of a generation. Jordan pushes me to think about how language impacts history, meaning, and people’s lived experiences." |
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