“A poem should be palpable and mute / as a globed fruit” –Archibald MacLeish This poem slips through fingers swift like silk. Shifts in breeze easy as pollen from a maple tree, or those small clusters of gnats as they do whatever gnats do before their short life blows them some place else: into the ether, the air, some interstitial “out there” that can’t easily be held in the hand like a pomegranate, an apple. So much depends upon word choice. Globed? Forget figs, then. Same for starfruit, strawberry, pear. This poem is a banana. It passes oblong through liminal space and won’t shut up. It clamors its meaning up the banyans. This poem is so loud people can hear its echo down the street. No one minds. Silence is deafening and mute may be cute for old men who’ve spent their lives blathering, but women know it can be deadly. So this poem will not sit still on the counter waiting to be lunch. This poem carves its own bowl, thank you. It unpeels itself. Carries words in its lines flighty as a dowager. This poem is not a stationary set to place on a tidy desk. It knows things: physics, mathematics, astronomy. This poem could hitch a ride to the Omega Nebula if it chose, is about to go all supernova, cannot sit still as a wingless bird or a dumb sleeve-worn stone eroding into nothing. This poem finds its own groove, has a master plan. Not motionless in time. This poem needs to move.
Originally from Pennsylvania, Alicia Hoffman now lives, writes, and teaches in Rochester, New York. Her recent poems can be found in a variety of journals, including The Penn Review, Glass Poetry, Radar Poetry, The Shore, Journal Nine, The Watershed Review, A-Minor Magazine, and elsewhere. Her newest book, ANIMAL (Futurecycle Press) came out in March. Find out more at www.aliciamariehoffman.com.
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