Monthly Archives: December 2011

(NOTE: This lecture was originally presented by Powell to the MFA Creative Writing Program of Columbia University in September, 2010.) I am thinking tonight, as I address this unenviable task, of Flannery O’Connor, because she would advise against it, my … Continue reading →

  I have always written poems to you and whispered wistful snippets of them on windswept bridges and unlit streets.   You were, at turns, a city, a songbird, a hurricane. You were a blackout, a living room, a field. … Continue reading →

    I wanted to leave before the surgery but I couldn’t leave before the surgery.  I had to wait.  There was a tumor in my boyfriend’s neck. I met his mother in the waiting room.  She was afraid like … Continue reading →

  I have not lived in my decade. Instead, the sun has shone and I have missed all of it. Something else has made my shadow. My girlfriend never shows up. The chicken is burned before I eat it. I … Continue reading →

  A boy and a girl enter a field together. The field is not really a field, but rather an orchard with thousands of fallen pecans strewn at its feet. The boy is not really a boy, but more of … Continue reading →

It’s a great day to be an Indian. I was dressed in cowboy boots. “Bueno,” you said. It was not good enough for me. I know gay and straight men. They each prefer certain things as opposed to the opposite, … Continue reading →