Tuesday poem #582 : Ian Seed : Fired

 

There was one poem left to workshop when the last session

I was ever going to teach at the university came to the end

of its allotted time,

 

so I said we could add an extra quarter of an hour

for the poem, but then found myself for the first time in years

dying for a cigarette.

 

Even if smoking was of course forbidden in the seminar rooms,

I asked one of the students to ask Stella in the office if she

would offer me one of her cigarettes.

 

A couple of minutes later the students watched incredulously

as I lit up (with a match from the box Stella had lent me)

and puffed away – like a poet from the 1970s,

 

it occurred to me, as I began asking questions about

the poem to get the students talking

instead of staring.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ian Seed's [Photo by Jonathan Bean for Lancaster litfest] recent collections of poetry and prose poetry include Night Window (Shearsman, 2024), Operations of Water (Knives, Forks & Spoons Press, 2020), and New York Hotel (Shearsman, 2018) (a TLS Book of the Year). His most recent translations are The Dice Cup, from the French of Max Jacob (Wakefield Press, 2022), and the river which sleep has told me, from the Italian of Ivano Fermini (Fortnightly Review Odd Volumes, 2022). See www.ianseed.co.uk

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #581 : Sarah Alcaide-Escue : Vestiges

 

 

Among deep brambles of passing light,
we talk of burning fields and plastic oceans,
yet each blackberry begs for pause
as they bud before us in the sun.

We yearn for a clearer sky,
and our longing catches
in the hollow of all that’s fleeting.
You say the quill of a porcupine
only releases when touched,
unlike the heart, which tends to soften with rot.

Lilies bruise in water,
and all around us
fallen fruit bursts
bright deaths—
patterns flung to the sky.

The land falls out of sleep,
stitches itself seam to seam.
You and I write our names
into a tangle of grasses.

We’re like those foxes
hiding beneath the brush,
pulling organs from the ruin
of an unknown animal.

 

 

Sarah Alcaide-Escue is a writer from Florida. Her poetry chapbook Bruised Gospel was published by The Lune in 2020. She holds an MFA from Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School and a BA from the University of South Florida. Her poetry, book reviews, and visual art have been published in Reliquiae, apo-press, The Lit Pub, Channel, Always Crashing, Diagram, After the Pause, and elsewhere.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #580 : Ted Landrum : we re-World the un-World

 

                        — for the next Calvino

that portion we think among
o/ur made horizon    here
another world can make    in us
the sense to re-shape    re-set
and un-destroy    this    if-life
ear-sight    or-rite    us-change
to be stood    true    in the or-life   
re-scape situation    to press on
to become yes-ways    to do    with
if    of the whole everything
think-time world    we    respond
re-forward    re-experience    re-world  
surprising life-time    changes    people
the human future    Generation Peace
if daily us     and the sea    will be well
to know that    gives    or takes
more than letters    attainable today
if you say you feel you want you cause    us
and happen to restart well    look it happens
true contrasting currents exist    ineffable
language shadows    like sources
overflowing us-changes    in on
the challenge:    re-up to    the world
influence    in the if situation between us
a world made special and aware    almost
cooking this other story    a confusion-world
able to cross    on words
no language can turn into the art of silence
to re-order the new reading made
by choosing    if    sifted    us    we turn on
vision constructed    the new will to
see    the context of us as    yes   
a thick life    we start    is
only every habit transformed     necessarily
to see and hear the beast of time
the horizon touched    is us    having a turn
to knowledge in a trying    day   
difficult with language    usly frustrating
to try widely every event plot
remains    a beginning    we    try
in moving avalanche    gradation tradition
to survive    stories    we sense    harm
acting under language    becoming
us    increasing    awareness
the fight    everyday    living long
in the difficult world-port    we    call on
to appear    to make    and free    life
trying to mean    yes    a re-movement
usly speaking    to read more    and yes
together action    Operation We    see
rearranging us on    the long story of
the world in accord    we    if we re-
the us languages on    as a re-collage
by characters   trying the world on   
in passages    connecting every art
reconcilable    if    the true challenge
tangle of sense renewing    attention
and interest    in the uni-poetry love
for   human    reality    o/ur nautilus tale
began to object    the problem projects
express tomato    said
the re-approach also includes    a story
each think sees    to say it    possibly
beyond capacities    start with    imagining
all    tried    to write the creative is-sense
the us-problem    developed sensitivity
senses    to make    as if
to make change be human
you    pre-    re-    experience
fully connected    us    a sense of
knowing to desire    we make us    if
the re-   complexity
up close to the other trying

 

"We re-World the un-World" is an Archi-Poem made by Ted Landrum in response to Italo Calvino's 1983 lecture "The Written World and the Unwritten World", found in fresh translation by Ann Goldstein (HarperCollins, 2023), p119-130.  The poem builds on a series in progress called "Six Poems for the Next Calvino".

Archi-Poetry rule:
Select very few words, syllables, or letters, from each source line, making changes as desired... & #MakePeaceNow!

 

 

 

 

Ted Landrum is the author of Midway Radicals & Archi-Poems (Signature Editions, 2017) and two collaborative chapbooks: Table for Four / Eccentric Crops (JackPine Press, 2020) with Steven Ross Smith, Jennifer Still and Colin Smith; and Room to Room: Poetry & Architecture in Conversation (Arkitexwerks, 2018), with Ingrid Ruthig and Komi Olaf. Find more from Ted Landrum at www.ubuloca.com and youtube.com/@tedlandrum1479.         

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan