Paul Muldoon, “A Mayfly”
A mayfly taking off from a spike of mullein
would blunder into Deichtine’s mouth to become Cuchulainn,
Cuchulainn who had it within him to steer clear
of a battlefield on the shaft of his own spear,
his own spear from which he managed to augur
the fate of that part-time cataloguer,
that cataloguer who might yet transcend the crush
as its own tumult transcends the thrush,
the thrush that’s known to have tipped off avalanches
from the larch’s lowest branches,
the lowest branches of the larch
that model themselves after a triumphal arch,
a triumphal arch made of the femora
of a woman who’s even now filed under Ephemera.
Maggot is the eleventh volume of poems from Paul Muldoon, who’s currently serving as the poetry editor at The New Yorker. In that capacity, he’s taking part in a charity auction for Housing Initiatives of Princeton, offering himself up as three separate prizes: you could get a private reading of some of his poems; you could get a one-on-one consult about your own verse; you might even try for the guided tour of the New Yorker offices. The bidding runs through October 28, 2010, with a party at Princeton’s Present Day Club two nights later.
“Poetry is as vital as ever,” Muldoon recently told The Economist. “The teaching of poetry reading, however, is sluggish and, often, slovenly. It needs to be expanded in the school curriculum and be more a feature of society at large. The newspapers should all be carrying a daily poem. It should be as natural as reading a novel.” In the meantime, we do what we can.
11 October 2010 | poetry |
Elizabeth Alexander, “The Texas Prophet”
I am the Texas Prophet who is now in Baltimore.
God blesses those that see me and I’m coming to your town.
I guarantee you without fail a straight and one-way blessing.
I come to bring you luck and by your popular demand.I’m bringing Mojo hands for those of you can’t win for losing.
All manner of disease is healed. Cash money falls like rain.
If I were you I would come early. He can’t stay all night.
Those who know me know I am no money-hungry Prophet.I am the Texas Prophet who is now in Baltimore.
I’m bringing good luck talismans and guarantee my work.
Keep looking up keep looking up His help is on the way.
Yours in spirit and in love The Prophet John C. Bates.
Crave Radiance collects twenty years’ worth of poems from Elizabeth Alexander, including “Praise Song for the Day,” which she read at the inauguration of President Barack Obama. Up until then, she was perhaps best known as the author of “The Venus Hottentot,” about which Ta-Nehisi Coates has written, “I’m embarrassed to say that I hated this poem when I first read it. But I was young and foolish. I knew better after I read it ten more times… This is, to my mind, one of the best meditation I’ve ever read on black women and the loss–and I guess reclamation–of control of their physical selves.”
The Academy of American Poets presents some other poems included in this collection: “Blues,” “Haircut,” and “Ladders.” Alexander’s own website also features poems from throughout her career.
1 October 2010 | poetry |
Our Endless and Proper Work is my new book with Belt Publishing about starting (and sticking to) a productive writing practice. 
