Until now I was never one of those kids
obsessed with dinosaurs. Scientists say
we find, with luck, maybe forty percent
of a specimen's bones and reconstruct
the rest. A century of digging, entire
careers of imagining limbs and skin,
diet and teeth, has recreated bone
by resurrected bone an unknown species,
a fearsome aquatic hunter bigger
than T. rex. I say let us all be one
of those kids in paleo-print jammies
who memorize a million made-up names.
Take Saturdays to gaze at skeletons
strung together. Study forest floors for tracks
preserved by ancient mud turned stone.
Every bird on its perch discloses ways
the dinosaurs never left at all, bits
of life even extinction couldn't kill.
The news offers daily apocalypse,
daily strife. So nightly watch the sky
and remember how much rubble there is
to fall from space, its height never fated
to hold. Missiles swivel to face our homes
and glaciers loose a new flood's weight. Against
such days, may we all become dinosaurs.
Let us love the stories our bones will tell.
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Imagined obituary of Victoria Change set in newspaper columns
"The Self and Its Many Deaths"

In an interview with Peter Mishler, Victoria Chang discusses obituaries, childhood, her mother's death and writing. "There’s nothing in the world that makes me quite as happy as when I’m writing. Obviously, it’s hard, but I enjoy that difficulty. I also find it strange that after all these decades of writing, it still feels fresh every time. I find it so odd how boundless the human imagination is."

via LIT HUB
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What Sparks Poetry:
Cynthia Arrieu-King on Rainer Maria Rilke’s “The Man Watching”

"As I sat on the brick stoop reading the words, I felt a strange certainty, as if I were falling. I was hearing someone actually articulate a space for uncertainty, melancholy, and suffering that sounded current, electric. This kind of thinking is what I wanted. I had always wanted to see behind the look of things." 
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