All of this damage is already done:
the meadows inflamed and gone blonde
with rash goldenrod. Nothing ever stays
where it ought: runoff dragged into the river
by summer rains from shit-covered fields—
my thickly-perfumed Vermont. The morning
glories creep up the shafts of the garden
vegetables, their seductive curls choking
out my small plot. Sometimes we can't see
the dangers we feed, that we nurture,
like the warbler who cares for the cowbird
planted in her nest, a deep and doubling
hunger fed as the nestlings starve
in their crowded bowl. I know
I'm not invited. I want
to love something. Not to open my mouth
like the long, smooth flower
of a ravenous weed.
From Field Music by Alexandria Hall. Copyright 2020 Alexandria Hall. Excerpted by permission of Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins.
Alexandria Hall is from Vermont. Her debut poetry collection, Field Music (Ecco, 2020), was selected by Rosanna Warren as a winner of the National Poetry Series. She holds an MFA from New York University and is now a PhD student in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Southern California. She is founder and editor-in-chief of Tele-Magazine. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in LARB Quarterly Journal, Narrative, BOAAT, The Bennington Review, Hobart, and The Yale Review, among others. She lives in Los Angeles.
SWWIM Every Day is proud to present poems by women-identifying poets appearing at Miami Dade College’s 2020 Miami Book Fair.
Miami Dade College’s 2020 Miami Book Fair will host over 200+ authors from all over the world in conversation, in readings, in storytelling, all virtual, all safe, all unique, and all FREE between Nov. 15-22. Reading from their new work will be Diane Louie, Nikky Finney, Heid Erdrich, Jane Hirshfield, Danez Smith, Kazim Ali, John Murillo, Jen Karetnick, Jorie Graham, Kevin Young, among many others. And in conversation with Miami’s own Campbell McGrath will be these poets laureate: Robert Hass, Juan Felipe Herrera, Joy Harjo, among others. Access to Miami Book Fair 2020 is free. For more information and to register please visit MiamiBookFaironline.com. Follow Miami Book Fair @miamibookfair, #MiamiBookFair2020 #MBF2020 #MiamiBookFairOnline.
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