#grace cavalieri

The Hot Dog Factory (1937) by Grace Cavalieri

hi anon! thank you so much for this prompt. i love grandmothers & some of these poems (the Bishop and Vuong ones in particular) are very close to my heart, so i hope you enjoy reading these as much as i do.

Ocean Vuong, “Kissing in Vietnamese” | My grandmother kisses / as if bombs are bursting in the backyard, / where mint and jasmine lace their perfumes / through the kitchen window

Elizabeth Bishop, “Sestina” | September rain falls on the house. / In the failing light, the old grandmother / sits in the kitchen with the child

Naomi Shihab Nye, “The Words Under the Words” | My grandmother's days / are made of bread, / a round pat-pat and the slow baking.

Hala Alyan, “Aleppo” | This is how a lone bomb can erase a lineage: the nicknames for / your mother, the ghost stories, the only song that put your / child to sleep.

Elizabeth Alexander, “Autumn Passage” | the body / that can no longer even make fever / but nonetheless burns / florid and bright and magnificent / as it dims, as it shrinks, / as it turns to something else.

✨✨Congratulations to (five!) SPD authors, winners of The Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship!

"The Academy of American Poets is pleased to announce the first-ever recipients of the Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowships. These thirteen poets who serve as poets laureate of states, cities, and counties across the U.S. will receive a combined $1,050,000 in recognition of their literary merit and to support civic programs, which will take place over the next twelve months."

TC Tolbert, Poet Laureate of Tucson (Gephyromania, Ahsahta Press; Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics, Nightboat Books)

Kim Shuck, Poet Laureate of San Francisco (Clouds Running In, Taurean Horn Press; Rabbit Stories, Poetic Matrix Press)

Raquel Salas Rivera, Poet Laureate of Philadelphia (Lo terciario / The Tertiary, Timeless, Infinite Light)

Grace Cavalieri, Poet Laureate of Maryland (The Mandate of Heaven; The Poet's Cookbook; Water on the Sun, Bordighera Press)