PEN American Center
Joshua Edwards stopped by the PEN America offices to record an excerpt, entitled "Red Storm Days," from his poem "Agonistes." Complete with hustling, bustling PEN America offices noises. Read More »
Screaming mostly / I like to dance dark woods / stony hills lonely & moody / god I can scream Read More »
In regard to the gods, / their secrets, who knew human love / wanted darkness. // Signs were many. Years facing / the gods led to scorn. Nothing is. / Of this earth, nothing is told about myths / made to breathe merely // a hundred times. Read More »
how saints have bent slender here under orisons and absence / over which appearance tips and we the steadying Read More »
Twenty-four descriptions of the future: / Champagne after a trip in a carriage, / Discontents without civilization, / A bizarre light will unsteady the air Read More »
‘These scavengers won’t go home’ he says, / Breaking the allegro of a tour through the Old City, / ‘Now Sudan doesn’t want them and Africa doesn’t want them.’ Read More »
Today again / The Pastoral / sounds like a funeral march / : the dream of / a statesman / waking up in heaven / Bearing with him the death of a nation / & why not / the death of all nations Read More »
The severed leg serves as his pillow when he sleeps. / The severed leg is placed on the dining table when he eats. / (Is he married? Let’s say he is.) Read More »
I no longer call his death in Tennessee a murder I call it an execution, executed for being queer. It happened over a dozen years ago and few believed my story and the police told our mutual friends he killed himself. An execution not fit for police...Read More »
There is a man and a woman in the kitchen fighting / over which of the two of them get to keep their / son. The man is leaving the house and is never / going to come back. The boy is my boy and I am / going to raise him. The / woman is holding the...Read More »