New Poetry with Audio!

Donald Revell
Stephen Burt
Paul Hoover
Jonah Winter
Cathy Wagner
Reginald Shepherd
Nin Andrews
Sophia Kartsonis
Sandra Miller
Joshua Harmon
Devin Johnston
Chuck Zerby
Sara Henning
Ognjen Smiljanic
Lance Phillips
Peter Drake
Kathleen Byrne
Ernest Hilbert
Garth Greenwell
Marc McKee

Criticism

Brian Henry on Kinsella
Gabriel Welsch on Northrop
Gabriel Welsch on Smith
Cecily Iddings on Ruefle
Christopher McDermott on Wenderoth

Devin Johnston is the author of Telepathy (Paper Bark Press, 2001) as well as several chapbooks. He has also published a book of criticism, Precipitations: Contemporary American Poetry as Occult Practice (Wesleyan, 2002). With Michael O'Leary, he directs Flood Editions.

Black Balloons

At seven, thought balloons

ascend through trees,

each endless surface lit

by Betelgeuse.

Working nights, I wake

to the roll and clap

of skateboards – wave on wave

of debris in a dry bed.

With nothing much in mind

I wash my face

and read a letter from

Brazil. Outside

the dogman holds a blade

of grass between

his thumbs: its whistle penetrates

both brick and bone.

An awning snaps;

exhaust pursues a bus

emblazoned with cartoons

of singing cats

down crowded streets,

and through the minimum of space

from window sill to sash

a thought escapes.

Some Say

Those who fix their minds

on what we face

in childhood –

an open door through which

the dog escapes –

carve stone, compose

romans a clef

of fine proportion;

love without regret.

While those who turn in sleep

to teenage years –

a labyrinth

of gaudy streets,

form turned on itself –

cannot find their fates.

Absorbed by clouds

they wander past

the Palace of the Moon,

consoled by smells

of mu xu rou;

then home to empty rooms.

Automatic Music

West of Western

Radio Flyer

docked in time

and metal doors

caps the Rose

Exterminator –

Grinding Specialty

Or Church of

Auto Elect

lifts a rusted hood –

Automatic Music

gets torn up

March Air

The trees are bare

     of leaves, and clothes

dissociate

     across the floor.

I take a card

     and recompose

myself from what

     we call “the world.”