Granta | The Home of New Writing

Explore Poetry

a style

Dara Wier

‘a style says conviction in indifference / conviction in style’

An Excerpt from Distance Sickness

Jenny Xie

‘To relive is the snarl of description, worked over repeatedly in the mind’

A poem by Jenny Xie.

Beautiful Short Loser

Ocean Vuong

‘For as long as I can remember my body was a small town nightmare.’

A new poem by Ocean Vuong.

Bianca Burning

C.K. Williams

‘The sexual terror lions are roaring into my ears as I make my way between their cages’

Bicske

Joanna Walsh

‘For us, discomfort is a hard feeling. / Almost as hard as hate. / Almost as hard as fear.’

Cassette-tape

Javier Zamora

‘I will etch visas on toilet paper and throw them from a lighthouse.’

Discipline

Jane Yeh

‘Her / Secrets play on continuous loop, // Like a B-movie.’

Eight pieces in imitation of Thomas A. Clark

Matthew Welton

‘what it is about the earth / that it won’t absorb the stream’

Flying Towards a Country of Rain

Wang Yin

‘Paper phantoms sit beside me / watching a two-hour movie.’

Four Poems

Mark Waldron

‘Just look at those nasty trees flaunt / their leaves, each one a tra-la-la.’

Handkerchief

Ghassan Zaqtan

‘Nothing’s left to say between us / everything went / into the train that hid its whistle.’

I Wrote a Poem About a Fucking River

Samantha Walton

‘though I’ve sat where torrents recall no slush / I’m drawn by your ceramic explosions’

In the Village

Derek Walcott

‘I came up out of the subway and there were / people standing on the steps as if they knew / something I didn’t.’