Statement of Record
The Fog The fog came unpredictably as a gift (after the sticky sleep and awkward, stoic morning). I smelled toast but never saw it. The door closed and I cried a little in the bathtub. Right, the fog - Hanging over the hole where the Nets will play someday, sliding down Dean Street as a happy hour pickleback might at half-time of Germany vs. Austria. It came...
Mosquitoes attach themselves
to the undersides of leaves;
their husks litter trees,
shimmering underthings.Children’s voices
unfold, always hungry.
They suck my limbs; their cries
bind my narrow bones.The sawed-off edges
of their voices splinter,
crack. Children...
Pain unravels slowly
like the filigree ends of a fern leave
unfurling in the dewy winter mornings
nature gives away the love
it stores and nurtures
Yanked from the freezer,
it doesn't resist, cubes dispersed
unevenly, one
side of the pale blue plastic tray
weighted down by a half-
There’s a kind of music that
plays when the warm water
runs down her hair
He’s senile.
He’s a scene
I’ve seen
in Aisle C.
He sees the Nile
in Aisle C.
See the scene of the Nile
Seen on the isle?
See the sea
seen in Aisle C?
The sea near this isle
isn’t the scene he sees.
but the isle he sees
...
Every year, American factory farmers trap sows in cramped crates;
they birth and crush ten million piglets under the weight of their own bodies.
partly because love
travels through much
of these lines
ears & glyphs follow
something like a rash move
& various kinds
of self-denial
İskender has written frank, brutally honest, and sometimes shocking poems that push the limits of social norms. He has created profoundly philosophical poems with a unique literary style. He is a poet who deserves to be translated to many world languages and read widely. What Pink Floyd meant for world music is similar to what İskender means...
The woman standing at the door of her hut. Blazing sun, the air clouded with insects. The girl, you, skinnier than in the film, hungry thin, owl eyes; blistered roads, never meant for auto or truck or
tank. The silence here is heavy, another burden, the girl, you, thin as whitethorn. Threshed from your own flesh.
Any poem I start with your name
smells like fire.
It is like living in a house that
has been burning for years
Wang Ping’s Ten Thousand Waves is the telling of the migrant explorer’s story for survival. Packed with voices of the dead, Ping’s book reminds the reader how sacred each laborer’s life is in the face of unjust labor practices. Each person is more valuable than their labor, even when multinationals, banks, and political institutions act otherwise when...
Statement of Record