☀ Today's Poem: "God" Christian J. Collier

Today's Headline: "Small Press Experimental Poetry Focus at New Grolier Exhibition"

April 19, 2025 God Christian J. Collier I used to think there was only one of You before the miscarriage. Now, I am not so sure. Maybe there are a number of Gods to wade through before falling at the feet of the last true one: the jade God we pray to who does not come or answer & the plum one who appears to offer salvation; the opal God who offers a limited extent of His kingdom & the olive one who only offers condolences; let us not forget the violet God that is bad with man because He is deeply holy. We all seek the one of manna though, don't we? He, the one of follow-through. He, the one of action & consequence. He, the one holding all we hunger for like butterscotch in His palms. That's the God I want to be alone with for a few moments, the God I wish to have to myself in the hushed hours when I should be up & readying for work like millions of other souls dispersed across the country's ink-black pillow. That's the God whose name I utter when I sit in silence on the shoulder of my mattress. I dream with eyes open of goading Him into halting my child's rest, guiding his or her tiny light close to the brushfire flickering in my breath. That God? That great & swollen orange storm? That's the God haunting me. The God who keeps His distance. The God whose star-draped hands I envy. They come at day's end to tuck my baby, my ember, into its infinite, feathered bed. from the book GREATER GHOST / Four Way Books READ ABOUT TODAY'S POEM Share Tweet Forward I had the great honor of having Vievee Francis lead my Breadloaf workshop a few years ago, and she encouraged me to aspire to make unique worlds and symbols that can be returned to. Vievee’s inspiration sparked my desire in “God” to make a world where there could be many divine entities, but the most desired one for the speaker is the most unavailable which sustains his heartbreak and loss. Christian J. Collier on "God" Celebrate National Poetry Month with Our Readers For National Poetry Month this year, Poetry Daily decided to turn the spotlight on readers of poetry: who we know are especially important, who, through the power of their attention, collaborate in the making of a poem’s meaning and worth. Which poem, we asked all of you—in our current archive of more than two thousand poems featured on the site since it moved to George Mason University in 2018—made you think, surprised you, moved you, or changed your world just a little? READERS WRITE BACK "Small Press Experimental Poetry Focus at New Grolier Exhibition" "A thematic journey through the recent history of visual poetry, After Words draws from the collection of Steve Clay at Granary Books, an imprint that has published verbal/visual works for 40 years....The exhibition features more than 130 works from little magazines and small presses that trace many forms of experimental poetics, including cut-up, collage, sound poetry scores, performance scripts, practices of 'writing through,' erasure, asemic writing, glyph systems, calligraphy, experimental typography, non-Western alphabets, assemblages, and beyond. An accompanying catalog is published by Granary Books." viaFINE BOOKS & COLLECTIONS READ ALL TODAY'S HEADLINES donate 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. © 2025 Poetry Daily, Poetry Daily, MS 3E4, 4400 University Dr., Fairfax, VA 22030 Design by the Binding Agency

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