This week’s Throwback Thursday post features work from Pierre Joris’s 2001 collection, Poasis: Selected Poems 1986-1999. Joris is teaming up with multimedia artist Nicole Peyrafitte for two events sponsored by San Francisco State University’s Poetry Center. The first, on March 18th (7PM), will be at City Lights Books and is co-sponsored by City Lights. The second event is on March 19th (4:30PM), at the SFSU Poetry Center, HUM 512. Read more about the events here.

 

2 Poems for Pens

 

1.

 

black & blue

the inks mix

sky at five o’color

a fountain

pen like a big

beaked bird,

childhood

games & smells

 

2.

 

I see the pen

poised, the shadow it throws,

the indents in the wooden

underbelly below the nib,

like sharkgills,

the meat eating

metaphor

i.e. writing instrument.