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July 9, 2015
 

Touching the Floor

 
Max Ritvo

About This Poem

 

“I wrote this poem in the bathtub. The tub was much too warm and my mind got unhappily tangled in thoughts of its own speed. I decided to cool my hands by pressing them into the granite floor tiles. It was strange that my body could provide me refuge even while being very sick with cancer. I always have a yellow legal pad on the counter next to my tub, so I got to work right then and there, and when I got out of the tub I had a poem.”
Max Ritvo

 

Max Ritvo is the author of AEONS (Poetry Society of America, 2015). He teaches at Columbia University and lives in New York City.

 

Photo credit: Ashley Woo

Poetry by Ritvo

 

AEONS

(Poetry Society of America, 2015)

"Could Have Danced All Night" by Dean Young

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"Hospital Writing Workshop" by Rafael Campo

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"Time Study" by Marvin Bell

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Poem-a-Day

 

Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends.