Category:Poetry

“The Autobiography of Frogs” and Other Poems

Duy Đoàn, winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize for We Play a Game

Poetry
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night — First Kiss Scene   Interior – Black and white. The VAMPIRE’s bedroom – Night   POSTERS cover the walls: Michael Jackson Thriller cover, Madonna Madonna cover, lots of other posters. There’s a BED in the background, a DISCO BALL hanging from the middle of the room, a RECORD PLAYER against the right wall. It’s Halloween.   ARASH, dressed as a vampire, is lying face-up on the vampire’s bed. He’s on the comedown from E. The vampire is facing away from him, standing in front of the record player. She puts a record on. He’s lying still. She starts the record…   0:14 – “Death” by White Lies is the song.   0:37 – Arash stirs.   0:48 – Lyrics start / “I love the feeling when we”   0:50 – “lift off”           Four seconds after “lift off,” but not AT “lift off…

2023 Pulitzer Prize Winner, Carl Phillips: Two New Poems, exclusive to FUSION

Guest Artists Poetry
Buried Treasure I used to think of tenderness as a kind of spindle we could both, each differently, revolve around   together. Likewise, until not so long ago, I still believed that keeping a lamp on at night could keep away   all ghosts, when really it only works for some ghosts, not the worst ones,   for whom it’s all the same – darkness, illumination… When I spoke   of vanishing, I meant without a whiff of retreat anywhere, no knocked-over winecup with its chipped ...

“Scenes from a Morning” and Other Poems

Poetry
We wrote six poems this semester, four in fixed form and two in Free Verse. We spend a good deal of energy workshopping each poem, with students often marveling at some aspect of a poem, perhaps making suggestions for edits…

The Quiet: 9 Poems

Reba May

Poetry
The Fox I saw the fox, red as brick, sleeping under the evergreen tree When the snow was falling in the front yard, it had darted across the street, aglow with the yellow hum of lampposts In the quiet of…

The Breaking Pointe

Faith Alhadeff

Poetry
The art of dance is the most Intricate of them all. It reveals truths we never Planned on facing. Blistering feet, Hidden by a smooth silk shoe. A simple leisure; Turned to restraint. Judging eyes daggering Her painted on smile. Stage lights beating down Upon her skin. Her body racing to keep up With her mind. She is the most vulnerable Of artists. Two tiny wooden boxes; Holding the weight of years Of struggle. Beautiful lace leotards ...

Berklee Slam Poetry Fire

featuring the poetic stylings of the Spoken Word and Slam Poetry classes, Professor Michael Heyman, chief stylist

Poetry
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Selected Poems: Ferida Duraković and Selma Asotić

Guest Artists Poetry
A character in Ferida Duraković’s poem “Cosmos blossoms, Sarajevo” gestures to a building destroyed in war and says, “Still, this city is incredible.” Three Sarajevo-based or -born artists have contributed to this package of work, exploring themes such as home, isolation, loss, love, wartime, migration, and aftermath. Ferida Duraković co-founded Bosnia and Herzegovina’s PEN chapter in 1992 during the siege of Sarajevo and served as its executive director for more than twenty years. She is a major voice in the region’s literature and has mentored and encouraged a wave of younger writers, including Selma Asotić. Literary translator Mirza Purić provided new translations of several of Ferida’s poems written before, during, and after the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. Along with his translations, the feature includes the original Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian (BCS) texts. Selma Asotić, a bilingual poet from Sarajevo now based in the US, released her award-winning ...

Poems by Ferida Duraković

Translated from the Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian by Mirza Purić

Guest Artists Poetry
Wartime Haiku

A mortar breaks its fast
The bombs are mum now
In the sole tree-crown
A sparrow chirping

Pitch-black night how dark you are
No more chestnuts left
Behind the blind window panes
How long is the night ...