A Question
In the Gothic Quarter, our friend pointed
Out indentations cut like a tally in the old
Roman wall. There had been a market
Here, and the butchers had sharpened
Their knives against the gray stone—
Centuries of sharpening, the way canyons
Are shaped by water, the way we’re shaped
By deaths, marriages, divorces, by the books
We’ve read and remembered, by the ones
We wish we remembered. Mi amor, are we
The stone shaped by so many knives, or
Are we the knives sharpened by stone?
George Franklin
SHORT ESSAYS
Waiting for Poems
Poetry is not a steady job, and when we’re unemployed, it’s not a good feeling. The waiting we have to do goes against all our cultural upbringing, and we often look to craft to reassure us. If we only take the right “generative workshop,” read the right craft essay, or listen to the right podcast, we won’t have to wait anymore. Perhaps, though, this waiting is important. Perhaps, it’s what allows us to write poems that matter, that address the conflicts between all the selves we contain.
Please Don’t Like This Poem
If you knew the poem you were working on was never going to be published in your lifetime and would never be posted for responses on social media, how would that poem be different?
Poetry Without Purpose
I spend much of my week doing purposeful writing, usually legal writing with the goal of convincing someone of something that benefits a client. The poetry I write, however, does not have a purpose and should not have a purpose. I understand that our democracy is...