Marks and Robbers

Justin Marks is a poet and proprietor of Kitchen Press chapbooks. His first collection is called A Million in Prizes. He also one of the next poets reading at The Deep Moat Reading Series. I have yet to read this collection, but recommend it on the basis of this poem.

Matter of Fact

I wanted to create the ocean, the sky,
the intricate structure of a leaf

and thought by now
I'd have come close.

What joy I have in knowing
creation of that sort

doesn't exist.
The world has little

use for me.
Its glare blinds.

How glad I am
for the orbit I inhabit.

A planet to the sun.

Read an interview with Justin over at Poetic Asides. If your in North Carolina, you can catch him reading here on the 16th.

Andrew Michael Roberts won this year's Iowa Poetry Prize with his collection Something Has to Happen Next. So far, it is my favorite collection of the year. Vibrant, short lyrics of meaning and mercy. As pointed out in this review, "When your entire arsenal consists of less than a dozen syllables you’d better hit it out of the park. And aside from his perplexing resistance to using capital letters, Roberts is able to conjure up funny and meaningful images with nearly no space or time."

dear special theory of relativity

please accept our sincere apologies.
nothing's relative since you've been gone,

the sunbeams halted
halfway down the sky,

the long train of cars dead
in the street, blurry from the rush

of trees racing past
on their way to work.

AMR will be the featured poet in the next SIR! Magazine which is due out this summer.