#penpoetry

[penamerican]

“outside seen from the inside is complex outside looking towards the inside is simple”

This week in the PEN Poetry Series, PEN America features an excerpt from Fiona Templeton’s play The Blue, which will premiere at La Mama Experimental Theater in New York City this month.

[penamerican]

This week’s PEN Poetry Series features "Dance" by French poet Cécile Sauvage, whose relatively obscure work, up until now, has never been translated into English. “Dance” is translated by Emily Vogel: pen.org/poetry/dance

[maryapyuna]

Iniibig Kita

Iniibig kita. Dalawang salita. Binubuo tayo. Andyan ikaw, pati ako. Hindi parirala; Merong simuno May panag-uri. Mula sa'kin patungo sa'yo. Iniibig kita.

[penamerican]

PEN Poetry Series: Four Poems by Gala Mukomolova

“My brother bought her from a drunk at the market, brought her home crammed in a card-board box punched with holes. Pretend it was my birthday, I was the four-year old she was meant for. Fistful of feathers: my cockatiel, my familiar.”

https://pen.org/poetry/four-poems-gala-mukomolova#

[penamerican]

PEN Poetry Series: Two Poems by Nicole Callihan

"At the mouth of the cave was a stick. / These are the things I did with the stick: / chewed it, waved it to the sky, poked myself / in the eye, / pretended it was a daisy, pretended / it was an orchid, a tulip, lily, cigarette, / made it into a gun and shot my brother..." 

https://pen.org/poetry/two-poems-nicole-callihan

[penamerican]

when I am w/ my adequate conquistador I feel disappointed & when I am w/ my antigovernment conquistador I feel ignored & when I am w/ my reformed conquistador I feel bored & when I am w/ my symbolic conquistador I feel mad Guest editor Brian Blanchfield features five poems by Steven Alvarez in today's PEN Poetry series. bit.ly/1WUyUZh

[penamerican]

“I Want So Desperately to be Finished with Desire” by sam sax

after all my labor                           pleasure arrives inelegant as ever                           secondhand chandelier     onion sound             the gutter that grunts back at you when you spit                                        in its mouth

                       //

even with my hand inside him                                he’s somewhere else

                      //

the shipwreck leaves             the paired animal bodies floating             & bloated with salt

                  //

everyone drags all their past                 lovers into bed

all their past beds               & public toilets                & foil pipes & park benches            & cutlasses             & cigarettes & the deadbolt                   & the dead

Poetry by sam sax is featured in this week’s PEN Poetry series. Read more here: http://bit.ly/1oC5r8u

[penamerican]

From “The Bastard’s Crown”:

Who but a father would think to harness a river? Before a boy is led to swear allegiance to where he will end, where can’t he run? The rain sends the surface ranting up the ramp. The water mortars our bodies’ running bond— how the bastard bound and posed us when a rosary of moons heralded our flesh’s mannish heap. The long hall pipes the whimpers of horded boys the chamber’s sealing shut behind him shucks from their sleep for years. I hear these hauntings clash until the water ampersands its silent uprise inside every bastardless cavity. The cool onset of amnesia. My leather smooths away from manhood. I capsize into an undammed appetite.

—Justin Phillip Reed

Guest Editor Dawn Lundy Martin features two poems by Justin Phillip Reed for this week’s PEN Poetry Series: http://bit.ly/1XxZR2x