‘Music needs silence / more than silence needs music.’ New poetry by Rae Armantrout.
The trees, good Seraphim,
begin to sing
at dawn
about making sugar
out of light
and the happy traffic
between high and low –
as if that were all
*
I expect compensation
for all I don’t
say –
for each time I stop
before coming
to an obvious conclusion
or an uncertain end –
for my discretion.
*
(Music needs silence
more than silence needs music.)
Photograph © Alexander Tiupa
‘We meet at various points in the great swathes of the past that neither of us were alive to witness.’
Allen Bratton on a daytrip to a castle with his older boyfriend.
‘Listening to three white poets, whom I suspect are academics, talk about the state of poetry.’
Oluwaseun Olayiwola eavesdrops on an older generation.
‘I’d been dubious about his company at first.’
Sarah Moss on watching Shakespeare with her twelve-year-old son.
‘She didn’t trust us because, to her, tenants were like children.’
Kate Zambreno on negotiating with her older landlady.
‘A moment now swallowed in embarrassment, I asked a question only a young person might ask an older one.’
Lynne Tillman on trying to understand what makes a generation.
‘When you wake up, / you will remember nothing of this.’
‘Curses’, ‘Familiar Ground’ and ‘Lions’ by Rae Armantrout.
‘Because children suspect that objects conceal their powers and intentions, animators make an alarm clock run, screaming, in circles.’
Nadifa Mohamed speaks with Ted Hodgkinson about her first novel, Black Mamba Boy.
