Winter/Spring 2001Volume II Issue I

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portal to our archives

from the editors

failbetter presents

who we are & how to submit

linkage

Terrance Hayes  received a 1999 Whiting Writers Award and the 2000 Kate Tufts Discovery Award for his first book of poems,

Muscular Music

His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Harvard Review, The Beliot Poetry Journal, Chelsea, Callaloo, and River City, as well as in several anthologies, including American Poetry: The Next Generation.

 

 

 

The Anagram Poems are adopted from the word game puzzles found in several syndicated newspapers: 1. End words must be derived from four or more letters in the title. 2.Words which acquire four letters by the addition of "s" are not used. 3. Only one form of a verb is used.

 

o v e r s e a s

Terrance Hayes

 

I traveled so far West it became East again, over

the mountains & through the woods until the mountains rose

again. I knew no one & knew no one could save

me. I learned to savor

the soft pink flesh of fish & listen to the odd verse

whispered by my stooped eaves-

dropping neighbor, the shy old woman obliged to serve

green tea from a stout yellow vase.

All the kneeling made my knees sore.

I moved with the ease

of an ink stain on a white kimono in a skin I couldn't erase.

 

© 2001 by Terrance Hayes

Also by Terrance Hayes:

s a i n t l y

g e n e r a l

n u c l e a r