May 12, 2020

Fingernails

Ken Chen

Stopped biting my nails when we started sheltering
and the next week they scratched my daughter
when I held her. Seldom had I ever seen nails intact
on my troubled fingers, but now I persevered to grow
abundant enough to touch any other person.
We ate and uttered grace, my own thanks diminished
by sincerity. Thank you for not being dead!
Seven o’clock. The sunset breathes pink as a gill.
We plead applause out open windows desperate
to once more belong to we. Pandemic, pan demos, means all people,
but our clapping sounds dumb cause it’s not.
I wonder if the virus is only envoi, a final sickness following
the first: that burst of capital scouring the earth for returns.
How gluttonous money flies as half alive as any virus!
Superstructural germ, does the wage like you borrow the body’s life
until investment finally sunders people extra, mere clippings?
The corona seems only the sun’s thin halo,
a white keratin rim, and now they say crisis comes
when people consume too little, so when my nails grow back
I chew them hope hungry, cannibal of my hands,
fearing each hangnail a door for the contaminant.
Does such solipsism tell you I’ve suffered
only paper cuts? It seems that being New Yorkers means
we share only one thing. We each hear the red wound wailing
in the air, soaking the siren red. The siren burns,
the siren spins, but now a different return from that of ambulances
and profits. Now spring strikes. Now the workers walk out
of warehouses. A judge orders ten migrants unthawed
from ice. Is something turning for the people
called surplus? Dread of anticipation before no future.
Stop biting your nails, says my mother
on Skype. She tells me to save the bearded roots
of leeks. If you plant them, new shoots
regenerate from the trimmings.

Copyright © 2020 by Ken Chen. Originally published with the Shelter in Poems initiative on poets.org.

Ken Chen is the author of Juvenilia (Yale University Press, 2010), winner of the 2009 Yale Younger Poets Award selected by Louise Glück. A graduate of Yale Law School, Chen served as the Executive Director of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop from 2008 to 2019. He is currently a Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library.

Poems for Graduates

This week, we want to celebrate and acknowledge the students who’ve worked hard under uncommon conditions to reach a milestone. Say congratulations to the class of 2020 with this selection of poems from poets.org.

“For the Graduation [Bolinas, 1973]” by Robert Creeley
“from Pieces of Kate” by Eamon Grennan
“It Couldn't Be Done” by Edgar Guest
“How to Write a Poem in a Time of War” by Joy Harjo
“Dreams” by Langston Hughes
“When I Rise Up” by Georgia Douglas Johnson
“Instructions on Not Giving Up” by Ada Limón
“Move” by Alicia Ostriker
“On Gathering Artists” by Alberto Ríos
“little prayer” by Danez Smith
“Theories of Time and Space” by Natasha Trethewey

Artist Relief Conversations

On Thursday, May 14 at 5 p.m. EDT, the #ArtistRelief Conversation Series begins with Kristy Edmunds of UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance and Lauren Snelling of the National YoungArts Foundation. They will address the difficulties of returning to public gatherings as well as alternatives for artists and writers operating in a virtual landscape. Watch it live on the Artist Relief YouTube channel.

Opportunities from the Poetry Coalition

Mass Poetry in Boston, Massachusetts, is seeking a VISTA Corps Poetry Festival Coordinator and a VISTA Corps Events and Communications Coordinator.
Just Buffalo Literary Center is accepting applications for its first-ever Poetry Fellowship, which includes a $1,500 honorarium, a one-month residency in Buffalo, New York, and a public reading curated by Just Buffalo Literary Center. Deadline to apply is Friday, May 15, 2020.

The Poetry Coalition is a national alliance of independent organizations dedicated to working together to promote the value poets bring to our culture and the important contribution poetry makes in the lives of people of all ages and backgrounds.

Marshall & Laughlin Submissions

We are accepting online submissions to the 2020 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, recognizing the most outstanding book of poetry published in 2019, as well as the 2020 James Laughlin award, supporting a second book of poetry forthcoming in 2021. The deadline to submit is this Friday, May 15, 2020.

Last Week’s Poem-a-Day

Revisit last week’s Poem-a-Day selections with us on Poets.org:

May 3: “When My Soul Findeth Wings” by Libbie C. Baer
May 4: “Louisa County Patrol Claims, 1770–1863” by Kiki Petrosino
May 5: “From A Book of Hours” by Maureen N. McLane
May 6: “Winter Term XV, from Underworld Lit” by Srikanth Reddy
May 7: “You Rode a Loop” by Rosa Alcalá
May 8: “On Growth” by Rae Armantrout
May 9: “My Eighteen-Month-Old Daughter Talks to the Rain as the Amazon Burns” by Dante Di Stefano

May Guest Editor: Monica Youn

Thanks to Monica Youn, author of Blackacre (Graywolf Press, 2016), winner of the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America, who curated Poem-a-Day for this month. Read an extended Q&A about Youn’s curatorial approach, find out more about our guest editors for the year, and sign up for Poem-a-Day.

COVID-19 Resources

Visit our COVID-19 page on poets.org, a roundup of websites that provide information about emergency funding and other resources for artists and arts organizations.

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Poems for Graduates, Opportunities from the Poetry Coalition, Artist Relief Fund Conversations, and more

Fingernails

Poems for Graduates

Artist Relief Conversations

Opportunities from the Poetry Coalition

Marshall & Laughlin Submissions

Last Week’s Poem-a-Day

May Guest Editor: Monica Youn

COVID-19 Resources

Older messages

"Again Later" by Martha Collins

"有識: Have Knowledge" by Paisley Rekdal

"VI—The Stare’s Nest By My Window" by W. B. Yeats

"My Eighteen-Month-Old Daughter Talks to the Rain as the Amazon Burns" by Dante Di Stefano

Poems to Share on Mother’s Day

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