The American Poetry Review

AMERICAN “. one thing that makes humans uniquely human is that we future, making decisions now on what we believe will make us happy later. Apparently, we’re pretty bad at this. And yet we futuree on. We can’t help it. Future-ing is what allows us to shape our lives, an essential part of what Gilbert calls POETRY REVIEW ‘our psychological immune system.’” BROWNE, pp. 16–17 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021 VOL. 50/NO. 5 $5 US/$7 CA JENNIFER CHANG THE LONELY HUMANS & OTHER POEMS ROGER REEVES SOMETHING ABOUT JOHN COLTRANE MARY RUEFLE EIGHT POEMS ALSO: PATRICK ROSAL PHILLIP B. WILLIAMS WENDY XU DANIEL NESTER APRWEB.ORG PHOTO: NATHAN ACKERMAN 2 THE AMERICAN POETRY REVIEW The American Poetry Review (issn 0360-3709) is published bimonthly by World Poetry, Inc., a non-profi t corporation, and Old City Publishing, Inc. Edi torial offi ces: 1906 Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia, PA 19103-5735. Subscription rates: U.S.: 3 years, $78.00; 2 years, $56.00; 1 year, $32.00. Foreign rates: 3 years, $129.00; 2 years, $92.00; 1 year, $49.00. Single copy, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021 VOL. 50/NO. 5 $5.00. Special classroom adoption rate per year per student: $14.00. Free teacher’s subscription with classroom adoption. IN THIS ISSUE Subscription mail should be addressed to The American Poetry Review, c/o Old City Publishing, 628 N. 2nd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19123-3002. www.aprweb.org. JENNIFER CHANG 4 The Lonely Humans & Other Poems Editor Elizabeth Scanlon ROGER REEVES 7 Something About John Coltrane Business Manager PATRICK ROSAL 10 When Prince Was Filipino Mike Duff y & Learning to Slaughter Editorial Assistant DOROTHEA LASKY 12 The Ballet & Other Poems Thalia Geiger STEPHEN IRA 14 Rage and Grief General Counsel JENNY BROWNE 15 Too Late to Stop Now Dennis J. Brennan, Esq. MICHAEL DUMANIS 18 Annunciation Contributing Editors Christopher Buckley, Deborah Burnham, MARY RUEFLE 19 The Understanding & Other Poems George Economou, Jan Freeman, Leonard WENDY XU 20 Poem Beginning to Sound Gontarek, Everett Hoagland, Steven Kleinman, Teresa Leo, Kate Northrop, Marjorie Perloff , & Other Poems Ethel Rackin, Natania Rosenfeld, Michael SHARA LESSLEY 22 The Hawthorn & The Monarch Ryan, Jack Sheehan, Peter Siegenthaler, Lauren Rile Smith, Valerie Trueblood, Joe Wenderoth EDWARD HIRSCH 23 An Appreciation of Muriel Rukeyser, “St. Roach” Founder Stephen Berg BLAS FALCONER 26 Strata & Other Poems (1934–2014) PHILLIP B. WILLIAMS 28 The Void Co-founder MELISSA BRODER Sidney H. Berg 29 A Conversation & ALEX DIMITROV (1909–1973) DANIEL NESTER 31 Pompous Symmetry Periodical postage paid, Philadelphia, PA, and at additional & Other Poems offi ces. Postmaster: Please send address changes to The American Poetry Review, 1906 Rittenhouse Square, DIDI JACKSON 32 Void & Aubade on Hawk Mountain Philadelphia, PA 19103-5735. Nationwide distribution: TNG, 1955 Lake Park Dr. SE, Suite 400, DERRICK AUSTIN 33 Diary: Six Days in October Smyrna, GA 30080, (770) 863-9000. M edia Solutions, 9632 Madison Blvd., Madison, AL 35758, (800) 476-5872. Printed MICHAEL BAZZETT 35 It’s Not You, It’s Me in U.S.A. MICHAEL BAZZETT 37 Menu & Other Poems Advertising correspondence should be addressed to The American Poetry Review, 1906 Rittenhouse Square, AEON GINSBERG 38 Marble Run for the Intramuscular Philadelphia, PA 19103-5735. Cyborgs Vol. 50, No. 5. Copyright © 2021 by World Poetry, Inc. and Old City Publishing, Inc. a member of the Old City Publishing CASEY THAYER 40 Reminding Myself That We Are Group. All rights, including translation into other languages, Not Remarkable are reserved by the publishers in the United States, Great Brit- ain, Mexico, Canada, and all countries participating in the Universal Copy right Conventions, the International Copy- right Convention, and the Pan American Convention. Noth- BOARD OF DIRECTORS ing in this publication may be reproduced without permission Jonathan Katz, Chair Major Jackson Elizabeth Scanlon of the publisher. Dana Bilsky Asher Eileen Neff Ava Seave Margot Berg Ethel Rackin Nicole Steinberg All previously published issues of APR from the fi rst in 1972 to BOARD OF ADVISORS 2013 are accessible online through JSTOR—www.jstor.org. Linda Lee Alter Rayna Block Goldfarb Judith Newman The American Poetry Revieww receives state arts funding support Natalie Bauman Werner Gundersheimer Carol Parssinen through a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a Richard Boyle Lynne Honickman S. Mary Scullion, R.S.M. state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Marianne E. Brown William Kistler Peter Straub This magazine is assisted by a grant from The Die trich Paul Cummins Edward T. Lewis Rose Styron Helen W. Drutt English Foundation. The columns in APR are forums for their authors, who write Ann Beattie Carolyn Forché Joyce Carol Oates with out editorial interference. Robert Coles Edward Hirsch Cynthia Ozick Rita Dove Emily Mann Frederick Seidel The Editors are grateful for the opportunity to consider un solicited manuscripts. Please enclose a stamped, self- addressed envelope with your manuscript or submit online at www.aprweb.org. ANNUAL PRIZES Subscriptions: p. 27 THE STANLEY KUNITZ MEMORIAL PRIZE: A prize of $1,000 and publication of the winning Index of Advertisers: p. 37 poem in The American Poetry Review, awarded to a poet under 40 years of age in honor of the late Stanley Kunitz’s dedication to mentoring poets. THE APR/HONICKMAN FIRST BOOK PRIZE: In partnership with The Honickman Foundation, an annual prize for a fi rst book of poetry, with an award of $3,000, an introduction by the judge, publication of the book, and distribution by Copper Canyon Press through Consortium. SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021 3 THREE POEMS JENNIFER CHANG The Lonely Humans In the Middle of My Life A type of hickory, it grows by water. I’m nobody’s child, I write my father So are we fools to drive to the river and lie the next day the day after our most savage storms to a friend on the phone a time have finally stopped to see zone away: I’m fine. I used to write a tree we’ve never seen before? letters to everyone I loved; now To hike in cold mud through a leafless forest, I head for the woods, phone to behold clearings now cluttered by whatever fell last night—mostly oaks, in hand. My friend, with whom no hickory—to attend the mad performance a decade ago I’d exchange of a newly roaring current. heartaches, each one stamped I do not want to call it singing, with exacting artlessness—writing the wounded poet’s head howling letters about other letters, we marveled downriver. Remember we scorned how our words arrived wherever his broken heart, broken rashly by himself, some say, for wanting love we weren’t, signed Yours Love Soon, across too soon. You say I am unfair, that too much the Atlantic over the hardly blue rain is what makes the river rush (there is no “we” Blue Ridge beyond basins of western in what you say, dearr): we hear it plains. I once loved a man as mythology. We hear it outside who’d force the weight of his body ourselves, a surfeit of music quickening into a felt-tip pen, scoring torn wind against winter trees, branch-taps I mistake for premonitions. Of what? That the tree paper with savage loops of cursive. is here, ready to spring to life again. I am He wrote everything down— unfair. I want to love honestly; I want love whirling manifestos, treatises overtaking honest. Every tree is the wrong tree. oceans of thought. In person, This is the direction we get lost in. he could not stop talking, Beech, sweetgum, more oak. But she and loudly, was impatient too, you say, it is possible she willed him to look back. We do not love alone louder, arms sweeping away is what I think you mean. When I walk behind you, the air, what I wanted to say, the back of your head is golden, ungovernable an animal voice I often found light I cannot look away from. Is it love abhorrent, though that to follow you I find myself choosing wasn’t I the animal, enraged an unexpected path; should we find the tree, that being together will it be I who led us there or you? Long gone are the leaves alternate, compounded, each was nothing an arrow, the thrust of a green thought; like our letters? Those accordant along the forest floor centuries crack and turn silences, sweet hectic to dust. We have children, grudges, grappling for words. I remember a Dionysian mortgage, habits the longing inside my head, mostly bad, and yet every December his beautiful letters, I imagine spring, our time past and to come, how when you follow me mine, my fingers tracing the ridges I track the blazes to reach the river, and often of consonants, questions I have to stop myself from looking back. and postscripts littering margins, To stay together, look away, some god said. uncontainable form, the page Here in these trees, our voices have no a stage for candor. To know another faces, we’ve walked like this for an eternity. is the terrible work of love, is it not? Who said that? I note the clouds, see through tree canopy, late summer, a bowl of black plums 4 THE AMERICAN POETRY REVIEW on the kitchen table exposed where the hill’s eroded awaiting my return. I am walking from too much rain. up a steep hill Everything’s weather, in the forest along a city I want to say, but how parkway: what you hear is I mean that voice my breathing, the roar who knows. In letters of midday traffic, trees I’ll never send my father, moaning in sudden strong I number days wind.

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