Best Thing I’ve Read Today: Susana Gardner

Yesterday at the online journal Similar Peaks, an excerpt from Susana Gardner’s poem “Lamia,” which works through Keats’ version of the Greek myth, went live. In the editor’s introduction to the poem, Carleen Tibbetts writes that the piece addresses “manifestations of longing and nostalgia,” all the while examining the “unforgiving passage of time” through a series of “bold linguistic leaps” and a “fierce mastery” of the line.

Here are the poem’s opening lines:

There are illustrations of want in light.
Light-work again and again moves through mossy trees.

Through ice.

There are trees. There are trees. Heavy magnolias offered fat
On out-cupped branches, palms. Branched. Paper-lanterns.
Laden bounteous laden raw–beauty
Some see only indifference in the gender-heavt sky.

There are poets.

Masked-poets. Poets who beg indifference.
Who fly into the night.
Who live–drunk against New Time.

O ruby.

To read more about Susana Gardner, her poems, and her poetics, check out the interview I conducted with her last May for Vouched Books.

Tags: Lamia, Similar Peaks, Susana Gardner