lV. Snow of childhood
Snow of childhood,
of dreams, of our poems
& discontent, snow of our memories,
some distorted,
forgotten, trod upon, rendered
to a whiteout, snow that dusts
bridges, highways, roofs,
that tastes of rust
& weighs on the branches,
O don’t forget them,
insufferable snow that falls
on the pots that hold
the pods of the dead
in the brilliance
of the outdoor gazebo
we see from the window
of the care home for the aged,
to praise our matriarch,
our boots wet, snow in our hair,
look how pale she is, look
what she has bore, those veins
in which flowed the blood
that flowed into us—
LXXXIV. The winter where the sparrows quieted
The winter where the sparrows quieted, in which the snow
would not stop, in which the rats would not come out,
in which we feared for our safety & snow covered the bereft shrubs,
homeless (here I am, I am you) sought shelter, fearful stockpiled
water & provisions. The winter a strain of virus
quarantined us far into spring, in which another teenager
somewhere in the city is locked in a soporific fog,
helpless, forgotten, isolated in aloneness, landscape
shrouded in an unreasonable mask, winter of the symphony’s
grand crescendo—seats of council, judges, assemble to form a decree
citizenry run amok is not a matter of the individual, but society,
timpani, cymbals, snare drum, family of percussion.
Jill Bialosky is the author of four acclaimed collections of poetry, most recently The Players; three critically acclaimed novels, most recently, The Prize; a New York Times best-selling memoir, History of a Suicide: My Sister’s Unfinished Life; and Poetry Will Save Your Life: A Memoir. Her poems and essays have appeared in Best American Poetry, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s, O Magazine, The Kenyon Review, Harvard Review, and Paris Review, among others. She coedited, with Helen Schulman, the anthology Wanting a Child. She is an Executive Editor and Vice President at W. W. Norton & Company. Her work has been a finalist for the James Laughlin Prize, The Patterson Prize, and Books for a Better Life. In 2014, she was honored by the Poetry Society of America for her distinguished contribution to poetry. She lives in New York City.
Credit: Excerpt from ASYLUM by Jill Bialosky. Copyright © 2020 by Jill Bialosky. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC, New York. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Welcome to SWWIM Every Day’s preview coverage of Miami Book Fair (MBF) 2021! The poets whose work you’ll be reading every weekday from October 25 through November 12 are just a few of the many authors from around the world participating in this year’s MBF, the nation’s largest gathering of writers and readers of all ages. They all look forward to sharing their work, thoughts, and ideas both in person and online. Between November 14 and November 21, new poet conversations and readings will be launched and available for free on miamibookfaironline.com (in addition to other content). For more information, visit the website and follow MBF on Instagram and Twitter at @miamibookfair and use the hashtag #miamibookfair2021.
