Cole Swensen
And Hand
27 pages
$5

Speak


Silence finds its
own its hands
                        says it's his hands
                                               graft
          air we carve therein

                                 I have
                                 a voice as clear as water
It runs downhill

Each word held

until we assume that whatever lives
in air     flies     these are
            hands of water
you can see through and on the other side are glass hands.

Poet and translator Cole Swensen directs the creative writing program and teaches literature and poetry at the University of Denver in Colorado. Recent books include Try (University of Iowa, 1999), Noon (Sun & Moon, 1997), and Numen (Burning Deck, 1995). Forthcoming books include Oh (Apogee Press) and Such Rich Hour (University of Iowa). She serves as the translation editor of the on-line journal How2, and she is active as a translator of contemporary French poetry, fiction, and art criticism. Recent published translations include Olivier Cadiot's Art Poetic and Pierre Alferi's Natural Gaits, both from Sun & Moon.