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April 12, 2018
 

Ceremony for Remembering
the Doorless World

 
Aracelis Girmay
illustration

About This Poem

 

“My son is my father. My father, my son. Inextricably bound. (Simultaneity and version.) I say ‘doorless’ to mean ‘without thresholds, houses, or rooms.’ Here I am listening toward a porous world where everything is reachable—all the versions of the beloveds, though perhaps in new form. I’m trying for the poem to be both a record of near-loss and a ritual of reaching through grief toward a knowledge that something persists. Line breaks reveal instructions, ceremonial materials, prayers, plea, peripheries, our companies. Probably I will be writing this poem for the rest of my life.”

—Aracelis Girmay

 

Aracelis Girmay is the author of three poetry collections, most recently The Black Maria (BOA Editions, 2016). She teaches and lives in New York City.

 

Photo credit: Sheila Griffin

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Poetry by Girmay

 

The Black Maria

(BOA Editions, 2016)

"Recognitions" by Rachel Hadas

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"Little Father" by Li-Young Lee

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"A Taste of Blue" by Cynthia Manick

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April Guest Editor: Tracy K. Smith

 

Thanks to Tracy K. Smith, current United States poet laureate and author of Wade in the Water (Graywolf Press, 2018), who curated Poem-a-Day this month. Read more about Smith and our guest editors for the year.

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