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Poetry
Dorianne Laux:
The Mysterious Human Heart
Streetwise but foolish, the heart
knows what's good for it but goes
for the dark bar, the beer before noon,
the doughy pretzel hot and salty, tied up
like a Gordian knot. It takes a walk
through Thompson Square where
the homeless sleep it off on stone benches,
one shrouded body to every gritty sarcophagus.
The streets fill with taxis and trucks,
pinstripes and briefcases, and the subways
spark and sway underground. The sun
is snagged on the tip of the Empire State,
singing its one-note song, the citizens below
dragging their shadows down the sidewalk
like side-kicks, both of them spitting
into the gutter as if on cue, as if in a musical,
as if there's no association between the trash
flapping against the chain link and the girl
with her skirt up in the alley. When the traffic
jams on 110th- a local pain, a family affair-
the Starbuck's junkie leans against the glass
and laughs into his hand, a cabbie
sits on his hood and smokes, cops
on skates weave through the exhaust,
their billy clubs thumping against their
dark blue thighs. Everyone's on a cell phone,
the air a-buzz with yammer and electricity
as the heart of the city pounds like a man
caught in the crosswalk holding his shoulder,
going down on one knee, then blundering
into Central Park to lean over the addled bridge,
the sooty swans floating under him, grown fat
on cheap white bread. Oh heart, with your
empty pockets and your hat on backwards,
stop looking at yourself in the placid waters.
Someone is sneaking up behind you
in an overcoat lined with watches,
and someone else is holding a cardboard sign
that says: The End Is Here.
Dorianne Laux's newest poetry collection, The Book of Men, was published by W.W. Norton in 2011. Her book Dark Charms was published by Red Dragonfly Press in 2010 and Superman: The Chapbook, also by Red Dragonfly Press, was published in January 2008. Her previous and fourth book of poems, Facts about the Moon, published by W.W. Norton in 2005, was a finalist for the Lenore Marshall Award and winner of the Oregon Book Award. She is also author of three collections of poetry from BOA Editions: Awake (1990), introduced by Philip Levine; What We Carry (1994), finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; and Smoke (2000). She is co-author, with Kim Addonizio, of The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry (W.W. Norton, 1997). Her work has appeared in The Norton Anthology of Contemporary Poetry and has been twice included in Best American Poetry. She has been awarded a Pushcart Prize, two fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She now lives, with her husband, poet Joseph Millar, in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she serves among the faculty at North Carolina State University.
We went through several different designs before we reached the final product and spent many weeks brainstorming and trying new ideas. Once we worked out the kinks, our class collaborated with the program director, Shelley Washburn, and the authors to achieve the best design for everyone.