American poetry Archives

American poetry

The Person Who Performs

From an interview with the poet Alice Notley conducted by Janique Vigier that was scheduled to appear on the Artforum website in December. Vigier pulled the piece from publication in…

Village of Dolls

by Catherine Barnett,

From Solutions for the Problem of Bodies in Space, which will be published next month by Graywolf Press. Some people say Tsukimi Ayano makes her life-sized dolls out of…

Poem for Harm

by Matthew Zapruder,

Reflections on harm in language and the trouble with Whitman

Battlefield and Wind Chime

by Tongo Eisen-Martin, Ben Lerner,

Tongo Eisen-Martin’s poems are echo chambers of vernaculars and unofficial languages. He both registers the damage caused by systemic racism and evinces—and by his work extends—the rich modes of resistance…

Six Poems

by Ben Lerner, Michael Palmer,

The formal accomplishment of Michael Palmer’s poetry is in tension with one of his recurrent themes: the limits and slippages of language. A poem dedicated to the trumpeter and composer…