This month for Poetry 365 we’re featuring Heather Christle’s nimble new volume What Is Amazing. Following 2011’s inventively quirky The Trees the Trees, the jubilat editor’s third collection expands her formal range while retaining the voracious curiosity and playfulness found in her earlier work. Hip, irreverent, and darkly funny, these 49 poems “feel like pages from a secret notebook” as they explore the world with a sly mixture of childlike wonder and adult gravitas. So check out this excellent new collection, sample a poem below, and make sure to stop back next month for Poetry 365.
The Spider
The spider he is confused
b/c I am not killing him
only moving him outdoors
When I die I do not want
to feel confusedNo I would rather feel clarity
like I am a pool
and death a chlorine tablet
I want it to feel
not like I am dying
but am being transferred
to the outside
And I hope I do not drown
as I have seen happen
to hundreds of spiders
b/c I love to swim
and to drown would
wreck swimming
for a long time
But death is like none of this
I know that death is a tower
standing in the middle of the town
And the town receives
many visits
And there’s no one
but spiders inside
Russell J. (Readers’ Services)
