ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Chelsea Dingman’s first book, Thaw, was chosen by Allison Joseph to win the National Poetry Series (University of Georgia Press, 2017). Her second poetry collection, Through a Small Ghost, won The Georgia Poetry Prize (University of Georgia Press, February 2020). She is also the author of the chapbook, What Bodies Have I Moved (Madhouse Press, 2018).
Previously in Glass: A Journal of Poetry:
When You are Born Missing
How to Build a Reliquary From the Earth
Prayer After Migration & Miscarriage
I’ll Be Gone in the Dark
This is the year where nothing matters.
This is the wheel well where the world left itself, bare.
This is the day that the moon did not descend.
All one can do is watch. True crime, as in: justice is forthcoming. As in: translation of self to foregone conclusion.
What I mean is: I cry all the time —
I was here. I am. This damage. Yet;
This is the point where no one sleeps.
This is the hand that writes without being under the influence
of death or newborn daughters or deadbolts.
This is the garden where daisies cry as though they know they will not survive the day.
What is the definition of murder? The quiet that screams inside the hour? The crows?
This is not WWIII, but it is a world war.
This is not Warsaw where my grandfather first saw. This is not the end
[of never-ending cruelty].
This is not immunity from past mistakes.
This is a mother who disappeared while her child slept, & the lake water
that won’t produce her body, & the boat’s oars that won’t speak for her.
This is a border & the stage inside the hostage.
This is a boy & a man & a mother & a daughter who died yesterday of disease.
This is a chorus of empty stomachs.
This is the dark hour. [that entertains us at knifepoint,
bound & masked, & survives]
This is a collective noun: a conspiracy of lemurs. An unkindness of ravens. A slaughter of iguanas. All of the dead humans in a single lie.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
