On Poetics
Poetics of Chicago
“You mean
Chicago
is in Illinois?”
Chicago
is in Illinois?”
Poetics of Lake Michigan
It feels like
an ocean
until the next
time you’re
standing at
the ocean.
an ocean
until the next
time you’re
standing at
the ocean.
Poetics of Cannabis
Buttered bread,
lights out,
listening to your
favorite records.
Buttered bread,
lights out,
listening to your
favorite records.
Forget to lift
the turntable
the turntable
tonearm when
you’re done.
you’re done.
Still spinning
tomorrow
morning.
tomorrow
morning.
Poetics of Cats
Slap my ass
Bite your hand
Slap my ass
Bite your hand
Poetics of Sex
“I think I’m monogamous,”
my wife said, “except for Stephen.”
Poetics of Saturday Night
Listening to
Sabbath’s
first album
watching
Boston-Columbus
hockey playoff
sound muted
revising poems.
Poetics of the Poetry Community
“What would
our poems be,”
David says,
“without the friends
of our poems.”
our poems be,”
David says,
“without the friends
of our poems.”
Poetics of Possibility
A phrase I used
too much
in my first book
of criticism.
Poetics of My Graduate Poetics Seminar
I
want
my
actual
poems
to
speak
for
me
instead
me
instead
Poetics of Po-Biz
This thing I call
my career is me
making poems.
my career is me
making poems.
Poetics of Evasion
Scared sometimes,
other people
reading intimate
batshit details
of my marriage
blowing up.
I can’t abstract
the particulars
until they’re no longer
recognizable
as a record
of one person
passing through
this brief moment
in 20th- and 21st-
century time.
of my marriage
blowing up.
I can’t abstract
the particulars
until they’re no longer
recognizable
as a record
of one person
passing through
this brief moment
in 20th- and 21st-
century time.
Poetics of the End of the Semester
“Yes, the words
will be there,”
I text David.
“Then you can
be beyond
words again.”
“Yes, the words
will be there,”
I text David.
“Then you can
be beyond
words again.”
Poetics of the Poem I Forgot
Should’ve texted
myself, like I do
when I wake
in the middle
of the night
after a dream
bestows
a line of poetry.
In the morning
a text
notification
and I wonder
who it’s from.
bestows
a line of poetry.
In the morning
a text
notification
and I wonder
who it’s from.