cameron alexander lawrence

"The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage" –George Herbert

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I'm grateful to the editors of Cold Mountain Review for giving this, the only dog poem I've ever written, a home. 

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Cameron Alexander Lawrence’s “Yesterday, As If Swimming” and Kasia Clarke’s “Mangrove Boardwalk” both resist a way through, choosing instead to dwell in the present for as long as possible. Lawrence “make[s] room for what can’t stay” and tries to practice a “hospitality toward impermanence.” To be hospitable is not simply to welcome in the strange or unknown, but to remain radically open to new ways of thinking and being, even if they run counter to our expectations.

Kristin George Bagdanov, EDITORS RUMINATE: ON THE POETRY OF ISSUE 46, A WAY THROUGH

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by Cameron A. Lawrence When the you who isn’t you calls the me who isn’t me, and says, Meet me in the East Village, I’ll walk forty blocks or more, however...

I'm happy to have a poem—a love poem (of sorts)—featured today at The Shallow Ends. With all gratitude to wonderful poet/editor Eloisa Amezcua for seeing something in it. 

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New Work in THE BOILER

Many thanks to editor Sebastian Hasani Páramo for publishing my poem “The Weight” in the most recent issue of The Boiler. 

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It can be a challenge to reinvent and repeat one image, to keep a momentum going through the tight space of a poem. Lawrence’s poem ‘I Will Love You in the Morning’ gives us birds, birds, birds and I want even more, even after “one bird divides into three...

Hannah Cohen for The Wilds. Read the rest of her thoughts here.

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“Figs” in the new issue of West Branch

A big thank you to GC Waldrep and his crew of editors for giving my poem “Figs” a home in their beautiful fall issue. 

If you’re looking for a magazine to subscribe to, I’d highly recommend this one. 

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“I Will Love You in the Morning” – New Poem in TYPO Magazine 

My sincere thanks to editor Adam Clay for seeing something in this one and giving it space alongside some amazing poems.

Check out the whole issue at typomag.com

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New Work in Muse /A

I'm happy to have one of my poems, from an ongoing series interacting with the films of Ingmar Bergman, up today in the new issue of Muse /A, with thanks to editor Gregg Murray and the rest of his team. This poem focuses on Bergman's 1953 film by the same title, "Sawdust and Tinsel." Bergman remains one of the most important writers for me—I learn so much from him about the power of images to speak soul to soul, to say what can't be said.

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I’m grateful to have my poem “Good Friday” in the latest Saint Katherine Review alongside the work of a bunch of people I love and admire. 

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To the Ghost

"But give me your silences,/ and I will wear them on my clothes,"

Many thanks to poetry editor Joe Hoover for giving this one a home in the latest issue of America. 

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New Work in Verdad 

I’m happy to have my poem “Crystal Ball” in the latest issue of Verdad, with thanks to poetry editor (and talented poet) Bill Neumire for taking it.  *Painting, also the cover of the issue, by Louis Russomanno

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New Work

I’m happy to have poems forthcoming in several magazines this year, including a handful that recently made their way into the world. My sincere gratitude to the editors of Pittsburgh Poetry Review (read: “Deleted Scene”), Saint Katherine Review (read: “Progress Report”), The Cresset (read: “City Planning”), and The Wheel (read: “God, If You’re There, I’m Still Awake and It’s 4 AM”) for giving these poems a home. 

Thanks for reading! More to come.

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Going East: Following the Path of Poetry and Liturgy

(FFWGR) Last year, I was honored to be on a panel with friends and fellow writers Angela Doll Carlson, Gaelan Gilbert and Scott Cairns at the Festival of Faith and Writing. Here’s a recording of our time together, just released. 

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New Work in Wildness

I’m happy to have my poem “Caveat Spectator” in the new (and beautiful) issue of Wildness, based in the UK. My thanks to Michelle and Peter and the kind folks at Platypus Press. 

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I’m grateful to the kind and talented Brent Newsom for giving two new poems of mine a home in the latest issue of Ink & Letters.  Here’s one from the issue:  EVERYTHING IS ALREADY INSIDE SOMETHING ELSE from the crumbs inside the toaster, to the moon inside the earth’s orbit. But much closer to home: the car is ticking cool in the garage. His keys are in the basket. And in the bedroom he’s inside her inside the dark, her familiar contours visible against the fingerprints of two calloused hands, instruments the priests won’t hesitate to tell him he should press together in silence, that one day he might find God within himself, and himself within God. Yet lying here, cooling in his sweat with her asleep beside him, he somehow knows, is sure—he already is, he already is.

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A literary press focused on the life of the spirit

Congrats to all the winners of this year’s Orison Anthology Awards, and Brandon Jordan Brown in particular! I’m grateful to have had my poem, “Burning Mount Athos,” selected as a finalist by Philip Metres (you must check out his book Sand Opera, and be sure to check out the good work the folks at Orison are doing). 

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Commandments

in memory of Philando Castile

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Thou shalt not make the car slow, shalt not stop the breeze cooling a man’s skin on a warm July evening.

Thou shalt not unbutton the leather holster, shalt not question a man and presume his answer.

Thou shalt not bow thyself to a gun, nor worship any fear strong enough to put pressure upon its trigger,

for the Lord thy God is a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate…

Thou shalt not obstruct the light of dusk on a warm July evening, a gun barrel angled through the window.

Thou shalt not raise thy voice, thou shalt not.

Thou shalt not kill the child’s innocence, four-years-old with braids in her hair, alone in the back seat with ringing ears.

Thou shalt not shoot the first bullet.

Thou shall not shoot the second bullet.

Thou shall not shoot the third bullet.

Thou shall not shoot the fourth bullet.

Thou shalt not kill the man who until moments ago was cruising on a warm July evening with windows down, his woman beside him.

Thou shalt not make the woman lie down on the asphalt.

Thou shalt not test the strength of a child to comfort her mother.

Thou shalt not murder yet another man for being a black man.

Thou shalt not mistake a black man for an abstraction.

Thou shalt not murder the black man named Philando Castile.

Thou shalt not burden millions of fathers, mothers, to hold their sons and daughters close for any reason but joy.

Thou shalt not murder the child of God, Philando, or his memory.

Thou shall not.

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Note: On Wednesday night I went to bed early, after a long day of traveling home from abroad, and was woken early in the dark hours by my children. I lay in bed after putting them once again in theirs, unable to go back to sleep, and decided I would see what I had missed while in the air. My Facebook feed was awash in statements of mourning over the death of Philando Castile. I quickly found a story in the Times and lay there reading, in tears. When I later watched the video of what happened, the thing that came to mind was the sixth commandment: Thou shalt not kill. I wanted to write my own list of commandments that would amplify the message of that one, and to speak specifically to police shootings within the context of an all too familiar religious (though selectively applied) text.