Poems for Your Life, v.03
Works by Jane Hirshfield, Richard Siken, Maggie Smith, Ama Codjoe, Wendy Xu, Eduardo C. Corral, Michael Ondaatje
Dearest—
Thinking about what it means to ache today—what to do with the animal inside our bodies. I remember Krzysztof Kieślowski:
“We are aching so much, like a person who fell from a set of stairs and everything hurts him. Every kind of touch is painful, even if it’s a loving one.”
— Krzysztof Kieślowski, from an interview with Patrick Z. McGavin
“without coat without hat” — Jane Hirshfield
This poem appeared in The Beauty: Poems by Jane Hirshfield, published by Knopf, 2017.
“Let’s admit, without apology, what we do to each other.” — Richard Siken
This poem appeared in War of the Foxes by Richard Siken, published by Copper Canyon Press, 2015.
“as if harrow were what / the world is made of” — Maggie Smith
This poem appeared in Good Bones by Maggie Smith, published by Tupelo Press, 2017.
“By now, you know it was love / I walked toward” — Ama Codjoe
This poem appeared in the The New York Review, published in the May 25, 2023 Issue.
“Do you / feel like a straight line? I worry about how / I don't” — Wendy Xu
This poem appeared in You Are Not Dead by Wendy Xu, published by Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2013.
“You said it was nothing / but a trick of the light. Gold / curves. Gold scarves. // Am I not your animal?” — Eduardo C. Corral
This poem appeared in Slow Lightning by Eduardo C. Corral, published by Yale University Press, 2012.
“and as for me / I bless everyone / who kissed you here” — Michael Ondaatje
This poem appeared in The Cinnamon Peeler: Selected Poems by Ondaatje, published by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 1997.
May these poems hold you.
Yours,
T.
— Poems for Your Life, v.03, recorded on 31 August 2024, from Manila.
Thank you for being here. I am deeply grateful for your continued readership. If you find value in my work and would like to support it, you can make a one-time donation or gift a monthly subscription via Ko-Fi. The Substack subscription model (using Stripe) isn’t available in my country, and so your support on Ko-Fi would mean the world to me. This allows me to spend more hours on what I love most: poems, and more poems.
Some great poems here—thank you! I especially liked the one by Siken.
Just a wonderful addition to my day. I know all these poems but so grateful to be reminded of them, and all you do. Thank you.