This winter, we present a second special series on poems that can be read as maps. Read the introduction to this series.
Meltwater uncovered ancient riverbeds
Streams broke the icy air like relieved old women:
fingers bruised, ready for death
just like that old bear husband,
betrayal everywhere
It isnt pretty, you know
Old women crashing through ice-covered air
while young men cheer
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Poems as Maps II, curated by G.E. Patterson, features work by Joshua Bennett, Jos Charles, Ernestine Hayes, Tanya Larkin, Aditi Machado, Chris Martin, Na Mee, Naomi Shihab Nye, Roger Reeves, Fred Schmalz, Prageeta Sharma, and Moheb Soliman.
Poems as Maps I, curated by Taiyon J. Coleman, includes work by Elizabeth Alexander, Bao Phi, Joanne Diaz, Nikky Finney, Sean Hill, Andrea Jenkins, Douglas Kearney, J. Drew Lanham, Claudia Rankine, Barbara Jane Reyes, Sun Yung Shin, Evie Shockley, and Ocean Vuong.
A river so slow, you can practically step in the same spot twice. / Its will is faint— / having been shackled / and placed elsewhere, again and again.
that sweet little piece of as / is land / that poor little patch shaved / off the banks that is / a weeping in the wind
Words can be cartographic, carrying with them imprints of places lived, visited, and imagined.
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