Danielle Chapman discusses this poem with our critic, Anthony Domestico, on the extended segment of The Commonweal Podcast.

 

 

A bird, undeterred, tries to squeak

juice from April ice

as crocuses wince

behind black snow

though through the window

I wade into yellow

warmth as if into the aural form

vision has been tunneling toward—

tigered lemon flutes

trembling acetylene

and, past the nauseated pain,

Easter, blistering.

Danielle Chapman is a poet and essayist. Her collection of poems, Delinquent Palaces, was published by Northwestern University Press in 2015. Her poems have appeared in the Atlantic and the New Yorker, and her essays can be found in the Oxford American and Poetry. She teaches literature and creative writing at Yale.

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Published in the March 23, 2018 issue: View Contents
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