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Lyn Lifshin
USA
onyxvelvet@aol.com
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Lyn Lifshin's poetry has appeared in a
multitude of magazines, from American Scholar to Rolling
Stone. She has edited four anthologies of women's writing
including TANGLED VINES, which is now in its second
edition and was named by Ms. Magazine as one of the 60
best books of the year. Other anthologies she edited include
ARIADNE'S THREAD and LIPS UNSEALED. "The No More Apologizing,
The No More Little Laughing Blues," included in her new book,
BEFORE IT'S LIGHT from Black Sparrow Press, has been
called "among the most impressive documents the women's poetry
movement has produced," by Alicia Ostricker. "Writing Mint
Leaves at Yaddo," a prose piece was selected as one of the
best pieces of writing about writing by Writer's Digest
and Story magazine.
The award-winning documentary film, "Lyn
Lifshin: Not Made of Glass," was called "an extraordinary
profile of a unique feminist," by Booklist and Mary McCarthy
declared," for it's passionate defense of poetry and the
written word...should be required viewing in every school in
America."
Lifshin's work has been included in virtually
every major anthology of recent writing by women including
"DICK FOR A DAY," "UNSETTLING AMERICA," "LEGACIES," "MOTHER
SONGS," "HER FACE IN THE MIRROR," "POETS AT WORK," "NEW TO
NORTH AMERICA," "THE HOLOCAUST," and "IDENTITY
LESSONS."
Lifshin's poetry collections include BLUE
TATTOO, MARILYN MONROE, NOT MADE OF GLASS, and, more recently,
COLD COMFORT, in which, Small Press Review declared,
"...The most published poet in the world today, Lifshin shows
here what many literary magazine editors have known for
decades: she's a poet of substance, range, and
invention."
Her intense poems reflect a range of emotions
and subjects and touch readers because they suddenly realize
that feelings they previously thought to be theirs alone are
shared. Winner of many awards including a Bread Loaf
Fellowship, The Jack Kerouac Award and New York State Caps
Grant, she gives readings, talks and workshops, often based on
the books she has edited or exhibits in museums, around the
country and has been poet in residence at many colleges,
libraries, and centers. |
Sunset Limited
Romare Beardan
"There are roads out of the
secret place within us which we must all move
as
we go
to touch others"
woman in hot morning
light cradling her
baby
like ripe fruit. Earth is
a bracelet around
her.
Chickens and the dark
horse charms she moves
like a
dancer flashing.
Nothing doesn't shimmer
as the Sunset
Limited
blows thru. Emeralds,
jades, and roses. The
train's
whistles and
wheels, its music, light
blazing on mahogany
skin
May 10
my grandmother's birthday
and the day they gave
my
father for his birthday,
all records lost
leaving
Vilnius, the anniversary
of the Nazi's first
book
burning. I think of my
grandmother in a house
the maples already
towered above hearing
the
news the first day it
might have been warm
enough to sit out on the
glider, feeling a
chill,
wrapping the rainbow
afghan around her, her
youngest just in his teens
almost close
enough
to have to leave her. She
will not stop sleeping,
answer
the phone with a terrified
what's wrong as
blood
and snow spirea open
in weeks, the peonies
that will outlast her and
her boy filling with
ants
you could see from
the glider as a faint
shadow
In The Park, Before Ballet
a man asleep on the bench
head covered with a CVS
bag,
a couple with braided arms
giggling past him, past the
rose
of Sharon. An empty orange
juice carton, newspaper
in
case or rain. Two years ago,
walking across this
park,
pear blossoms exploding on
all sides, I thought of
someone
who would always be missing.
New buildings instead
of
trees. My old cat who slouched
all Sunday at the bottom
of
the bed, emerald eyes glazed,
her body, a flung glove,
today
asks for food, a gift, a reprieve
as this sun must feel
to the
man, after weeks of rain, his arms
touching earth as if
waiting for
a hand to pull him back down
The Swans Must Be Here
on the other side of the blinds
on the black
glass of the pond
I won't see them. They dissolve
in the light
like those guava
streaks of carp, a slash of salmon
grosgrain,
the kind of sun you
can't hold on to. Enough to know
they will
leave a feather, other
clues. Even the geese are
scarce
this April. The swans are still
tough only some
are mute swans.
They stay in the dark leaves
close to the
water. The bed is
like a boat navigating by stars,
oblivious,
like the birds, to the
squeal of the metro cars. Some
times
I'm sure I can hear the swans
breathe. Cat tails and lilies
graze
their beaks like mermaid's hair,
like my hair if
I plunged in. At
night I imagine swimming close to
them, my
pale hair like kelp, my
skin as colorless as the oval of
their
bodies. Their black eyes are the
onyx my mother left me
I could see
myself in, see her eyes as the river
currents rock
us
Reading The Poem My Cousin Wrote That I
Hadn't
I didn't know she
watched men watch
me
walking, thought
I was beautiful
When we kiss she
wrote we come close
but we
kiss air.
I haven't seen her
for so long. I
never read the poem
about
sleeping together
in the lake house
before my wedding,
never heard her say,
"I
want to put my
arms around my
cousin and kiss the
night from her"
© All Copyright, Lyn
Lifshin.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.
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