ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Sam Pittman's work has appeared in such journals as Bellevue Literary Review, West Wind Review, Newfound: A Journal of Place, The Good Men Project, and Sixfold. He holds degrees from the University of Pittsburgh and UC Berkeley, and has received awards from the Academy of American Poets and the American Scandinavian Foundation. He lives in Pittsburgh, PA, where he teaches writing.
Gallery
the mouth can be
a place where things
happen: he constructs
an entire ship
in this green
bottle, then freezes
the ocean inside;
he swirls
a silken dance
for an easy stage
hand in this
mirror; he fires
an iron brand
and scores the lamb
his new name
which cannot be
heard; he waits
and waits; he
polishes his silver;
he melts the ice
he dropped in
this glass; he
sips his water
and swallows
"Gallery" puts production alongside its companion, violence. This poem is a list of sorts — of creations and destructions, of actions and inactions, of forms of beauty and forms of pain. And this list functions as a way to work through how the body and the self are not only constructed but are also sites of construction, revealing (or questioning) how the process of rendering is not necessarily positive even if it is generative.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
