s no s laves s in nest/s with
in come sir my lie
ge lord it i
s now y/ our turn co
me b e me rains fa
ll no wa ter in t me and p
lay your p
art the sun ros he t
ub under sk
in sin for ty days fo
rty nigh ts forty ce dis for forty
sins j'aim faim j'ai
faim god of spire spes and p
raise turn and turn the bo nes sing
a son g of wa
ter a wat er so
ng sin g song sin g song de
fend the d ead & sin n
o sin sin g the bo nes h/o
me what w ill my b ones say h
ow do the y forty we
eks come to t erm shh au di can you
not he ar from the de
ep the voi
ces not sir ens we are a
t sea the d art of my sto
ry stings i me
ant no harm no hurt res
cue us rag and bone men in
dict the a ge pears in g
in in wine win ter wine and y
ou Ruth this story ne
sts in the ne t the we b of ti
me tam p it down do
use the flam e of this ta
le what pro fit me if mon coeur non est
we wind o ur way sub
water o
nly the bone s of the sh
ip their e yes dart this
way and th at soft so
ft they ro
am the ship their cri
es grate on me
y ears drag the dee
p for the b ones of my so
ul their sou ls cast the n
et wide to the d eep men to the
p and a tot of ru
m...
From Zong! by M. NourbeSe Philip. Copyright © 2008 by M. NourbeSe Philip. Used by permission of Wesleyan University Press. All rights reserved.
We must ask ourselves what purpose is
ultimately served by this suspension of
all the accepted unities
if, in the end, we return to the unities
that we pretended to question at the outset.
In fact,
the systemic erasure of all given unities
enables us first of all to restore to
the statement the specificity
of its occurrence, and to show
that discontinuity
is one of those great accidents
that create cracks
not only in the geology of history,
but also in the simple fact
of the statement;
it emerges in its historical irruption;
what we try to examine is the incision
that it
makes, that
irreducible— and very often tiny
—emergence.
However banal it may be,
however unimportant its consequences may appear to be,
however quickly it may be forgotten after its appearance,
however little heard or however badly deciphered
we may suppose it to be,
a statement is always an event
that neither the language (langue) nor the meaning
can quite exhaust.
It is certainly a strange event:
first, because on the one hand
it is linked to the gesture of
writing or to the articulation of
speech,
and also on the other hand
it opens up to itself a residual existence
in the field of a memory, or in the materiality of manuscripts,
books, or any other form of recording;
secondly, because, like every
event,
it is unique, yet subject to repetition, transformation, and reactivation;
thirdly, because it is linked not only to the situations that provoke it, and to the consequences
that it gives rise to, but at the same time, and in accordance with a quite different modality, to
the statements that precede and
follow it.
Copyright © 2011 by Vanessa Place. Used with permission of the author.
—The "Miranda Rights," established 1966
You have the right to remain
anything you can and will be.
An attorney you cannot afford
will be provided to you.
You have silent will.
You can be against law.
You cannot afford one.
You remain silent. Anything you say
will be provided to you.
The right can and will be
against you. The right provided you.
Have anything you say be
right. Anything you say can be right.
Say you have the right attorney.
The right remain silent.
Be held. Court the one. Be provided.
You cannot be you.
Copyright © 2012 by Charles Jensen. Used with permission of the author.
(Haiku Erasure of Lord Byron's "Lines Inscribed Upon a Cup Formed from a Skull")
Start spirit; behold
the skull. A living head loved
earth. My bones resign
the worm, lips to hold
sparkling grape's slimy circle,
shape of reptile's food.
Where wit shone of shine,
when our brains are substitute,
like me, with the dead,
life's little, our heads
sad. Redeemed and wasting clay
this chance. Be of use.
Copyright © 2012 by Ravi Shankar. Used with permission of the author.
When children can no longer devote sympathy, owing to growing up. One mind always engaged or found with labor in order to be. Later on the trees acquired winter. Sent and took and did not go out. The weight of never shedding. We anticipated a cure if come willingly. We were unable to carry out nature. These impressions, fresh, often made me to see his life previous, the principal sadness I had to recognize.
We planted trees. We cleared the pond. Gathered different, undisturbed faith. Gradually the steps further and further withdrawing over the hills, beyond the fencerow. I was too
weak. I was often driven, but saw no way. I would never go back.
The difference, between us, not because I remained the same, unable to unalter, but taken from the midst, rarely clouded, and the broken. It was this, which woke me open, opened
to an outsider, a stranger.
Copyright © 2014 by Carrie Olivia Adams. Used with permission of the author.
An erasure of Grant Allen’s Recalled to Life
I don’t believe
I thought
or gave names
in any known language.
I spoke
of myself always
in the third person.
What led up to it,
I hadn’t the faintest idea.
I only knew the Event
itself took place. Constant
discrepancies. To throw them
off, I laughed,
talked—all games
and amusements—to escape
from the burden of my own
internal history.
But I was there
trying for once
to see you,
longed so
to see you.
I might meet you
in the street:
a bicycle leaning
up against the wall
by the window. Rendered
laws of my country
played before my face.
Historical, two-souled,
forgotten, unknown
freaks of memory.
The matter of debts,
the violent death
of a near relation,
and all landing
at the faintest conception.
Dark. Blue. And then.
All I can remember
is when I saw you.
It was you
or anyone else.
The shot
seemed to end
all. It belongs
to the New World:
the Present
all entangled, unable
to move. Everything
turned round
and looked
at you.
Copyright © 2017 by Robin Coste Lewis. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 5, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.
200 cows more than 600 hilly acres
property would have been even larger
had J not sold 66 acres to DuPont for
waste from its Washington Works factory
where J was employed
did not want to sell
but needed money poor health
mysterious ailments
Not long after the sale cattle began to act
deranged
footage shot on a camcorder
grainy intercut with static
Images jump repeat sound accelerates
slows down
quality of a horror movie
the rippling shallow water the white ash
trees shedding their leaves
a large pipe
discharging green water
a skinny red cow
hair missing back humped
a dead black calf in snow its eye
a brilliant chemical blue
a calf’s bisected head
liver heart stomachs kidneys
gall bladder some dark some green
cows with stringy tails malformed hooves
lesions red receded eyes suffering slobbering
staggering like drunks
It don’t look like
anything I’ve been into before
I began rising through the ceiling of each floor in the hospital as though I were being pulled by some force outside my own volition. I continued rising until I passed through the roof itself and found myself in the sky. I began to move much more quickly past the mountain range near the hospital and over the city. I was swept away by some unknown force, and started to move at an enormous speed. Just moving like a thunderbolt through a darkness.
R’s taking on the case I found to be inconceivable
It just felt like the right thing to do
a great
opportunity to use my background for people who
really needed it
R: filed a federal suit
pulled permits
land deeds
a letter that mentioned
a substance at the landfill
PFOA
perfluorooctanoic acid
a soap-like agent used in
ScotchgardTM
TeflonTM
PFOA: was to be incinerated or
sent to chemical waste facilities
not to be flushed into water or sewers
DuPont:
pumped hundreds of thousands of pounds
into the Ohio River
dumped tons of PFOA sludge
into open unlined pits
PFOA:
increased the size of the liver in rats and rabbits
(results replicated in dogs)
caused birth defects in rats
caused cancerous testicular pancreatic and
liver tumors in lab animals
possible DNA damage from exposure
bound to plasma proteins in blood
was found circulating through each organ
high concentrations in the blood of factory workers
children of pregnant employees had eye defects
dust vented from factory chimneys settled well-beyond
the property line
entered the water table
concentration in drinking water 3x international safety limit
study of workers linked exposure with prostate cancer
worth $1 billion in annual profit
(It don’t look like anything I’ve been into before)
Every individual thing glowed with life. Bands of energy were being dispersed from a huge universal heartbeat, faster than a raging river. I found I could move as fast as I could think.
DuPont:
did not make this information public
declined to disclose this finding
considered switching to new compound that appeared less toxic
and stayed in the body for a much shorter duration of time
decided against it
decided it needed to find a landfill for toxic sludge
bought 66 acres from a low-level employee
at the Washington Works facility
(J needed money
had been in poor health
a dead black calf
its eye chemical blue
cows slobbering
staggering like drunks)
I could perceive the Earth, outer space, and humanity from a spacious and indescribable ‘God’s eye view.’ I saw a planet to my left covered with vegetation of many colors no signs of mankind or any familiar shorelines. The waters were living waters, the grass was living, the trees and the animals were more alive than on earth.
D’s first husband had been a chemist
When you
worked at DuPont in this town you could have
everything you wanted
DuPont paid for his education
secured him a mortgage paid a generous salary
even gave him a free supply of PFOA
He explained that the planet we call Earth really has a proper name, has its own energy, is a true living being, was very strong but has been weakened considerably.
which she used
as soap in the family’s dishwasher
I could feel Earth’s desperate situation. Her aura appeared to be very strange, made me wonder if it was radioactivity. It was bleak, faded in color, and its sound was heart wrenching.
Sometimes
her husband came home sick—fever, nausea, diarrhea,
vomiting—‘Teflon flu’
an emergency hysterectomy
a second surgery
I could tell the Doctor everything he did upon my arrival down to the minute details of accompanying the nurse to the basement of the hospital to get the plasma for me; everything he did while also being instructed and shown around in Heaven.
Clients called R to say they had received diagnoses of cancer
or that a family member had died
W who had cancer had died of a heart attack
Two years later W’s wife died of cancer
They knew this stuff was harmful
and they put it in the water anyway
I suspect that Earth may be a place of education.
PFOA detected in:
American blood banks
blood or vital organs of:
Atlantic salmon
swordfish
striped mullet
common cormorants
Alaskan polar bears
brown pelicans
sea turtles
sea eagles
California sea lions
Laysan albatrosses on a wildlife refuge
in the middle of the North Pacific Ocean;>
Viewing the myriad human faces with an indescribable, intimate, and profound love. This love was all around me, it was everywhere, but at the same time it was also me.
We see a situation
that has gone
from Washington Works
All that was important in life was the love we felt.
to statewide
All that was made, said, done, or even thought without love was undone.
to everywhere
it’s global
In my particular case, God took the form of a luminous warm water. It does not mean that a luminous warm water is God. It is just that, for me, it was experiencing the luminous warm water that I felt the most connection with the eternal.
Copyright © 2017 Tracy K. Smith. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 17, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets. “Watershed” appears in Wade in the Water, forthcoming from Graywolf Press in April 2018.
—redacted from Smith’s Quarto, or Second Book in Geography, 1848, p. 17
division
division
general divisions
opposite
cluster clusters What considerable number
Where is
Where is Cape Farewell?
What sound leads into the largest
What What What What
Boundaries Bound United Bound
the New ? Bound possessions?
What What What What
prevails
What What What What
races What race ?
Copyright © 2017 Elizabeth Bradfield. Used with permission of the author. This poem originally appeared in Tin House, Winter 2017.
The removal of aliens who pose [ ] shall be ICE’s high [ ] These aliens include [ ] engaged in or suspected of [ ] or who otherwise pose [ ] aliens convicted of [ ] particular emphasis [ ] and repeat aliens [ ] who participated [ ] [ ] subject to outstanding [ ] who otherwise pose [ ] to public safety. Aliens who are [ ] otherwise obstruct [ ] fugitive aliens, in descending priority as [ ] aliens who pose [ ] security; [ ] or who otherwise pose [ ] the community; [ ] other than [ ]; and [ ] who have not been [ ]; aliens who reenter [ ] in descending priority as [ ] aliens who pose [ ] previously removed [ ] who other- wise pose [ ] to the community; previously removed [ ] who have not been convicted of [ ] who obtain admission or status by [ ] ; otherwise [
Copyright © 2018 by David Buuck. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on February 8, 2018, by the Academy of American Poets.
I am white where it matters in front of the
camera I am an egg a cobweb when
my mother calls me Haloul I pretend not
to hear here I am a résumé doll
gown of paper checklist piss in a cup
I was afraid of my body but not
anymore now there’s respect this bitch
pantyless humming louder than
the machine I am white when
asked to be storyboarding my own
grandmother into a poem here I am
meet cute between egg & song
Copyright © 2019 by Hala Alyan. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 14, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets
an erasure from the history section of the Anglican Trust for Women and Children’s website
a constant danger—
people who desire
exceptional experience
in controlling girls
nature and scope of work
and milk
Copyright © 2019 Chloe Honum. Used with permission of the author. This poem originally appeared in The Southern Review, Winter 2019.