Carl Phillips, “Clear, Cloudless”

Tonight—in the foundering night, at least,
of imagination, where what I don’t in fact
believe anymore, all the same, is true—

the stars look steadily down upon me. I look
up, at the stars. Life as a recklessly fed bonfire
growing unexpectedly more reckless seems
neither the best nor worst of several choices
within reach, still. I wear on my head a crown

of feathers—among which, sure, I have had
my favorites. Fear, though, is the bluest feather,
and it is easily the bluest feather that the wind loves most.

Double Shadow is the eleventh collection of Carl Phillips’ poems. It also includes several poems first published by Kenyon Review, and “Sacrifice Is a Different Animal Altogether,” which was published in Drunken Boat. “Civilization” appeared in The New Yorker, while “Of the Rppling Surface,” “My Bluest Shirt,” and “Master and Slave” appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review.

Here’s some video of Phillips reading for the Cornell creative writing program in the fall of 2010.

3 April 2011 | poetry |