I want to end with three poems-- short poems.
One of-- another foundational figure for me
is the poet Robert Hayden.
And there's a poem of his called "Bone Flower
Elegy," that he kept from publication
until after his death.
And in my reading of it, it's a homoerotic lyric.
And near the end of this lyric, he
invokes two characters-- the beastangel
and the angelbeast, which have always
fascinated me as a reader.
So I decided to write poems addressed to each character,
each figure, each mythic beast.
And I always get in trouble when I mention the words homoerotic
and Robert Hayden in the same sentence,
but I'm sticking to my guns.
It's in the work.
There's a queer gaze in the work.
Write letters for the Poetry Center in care of Tyler.
[LAUGHTER]
"To the Angelbeast."
"All that glitters isn't music.
Once, hidden in tall grass, I tossed fistfuls of dirt
into the air--
doe after doe of leaping.
You said it was nothing but a trick of the light.
Gold curves.
Gold scarves.
Am I not your animal?
You'd wait in the orchard for hours
to watch a deer break from the shadows.
You said it was like lifting a cello out of its black case."