Ark (Kuhl House Poets)

69 Pages·2003·0.19 MB·English

by  John Isles

ark
kuhl house poets
edited byJorie Graham andMark Levine
ark
Poems by John Isles
university of iowa press
Iowa City
University of Iowa Press, Iowa City 52242
Copyright © 2003 by John Isles
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Design by Richard Hendel
http://www.uiowa.edu/uiowapress
No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any
form or by any means without permission in writing
from the publisher. All reasonable steps have been taken
to contact copyright holders of material used in this
book. The publisher would be pleased to make suitable
arrangements with any whom it has not been possible to
reach. This is a work of poetry; any resemblance to
actual events or persons is entirely coincidental.
The publication of this book was generously supported
by the University of Iowa Foundation.
Printed on acid-free paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Isles, John.
Ark: poems / by John Isles.
p. cm.—(Kuhl House poets)
isbn0-87745-860-x(pbk.)
I. Title. II. Series.
ps3609.s58a88 2003
811(cid:1).6—dc21 2003040251
03 04 05 06 07 p 5 4 3 2 1
To the memory of my mother and father

contents
part i
To a Pretending Leaf 3
Static Report 4
Carrion Days 5
Sirens 6
Out of the Past 7
Elegy for the Present Moment 9
Small Traveling Islands 10
General Trees 12
part ii
Covenant 15
West of Here, North of True 17
The Evangelist of Fish 19
City upon a Hill 20
Saint in the Wilderness 21
New World Narratives 22
The Old Hunting Grounds 24
The Night-Flier’s Song 25
Western Landscape with Storm 27
Natural History 28
Every City 29
part iii
How the Dead Kiss 33
part iv
The Blouse Keeps Opening 45
The Wounded Angel 46
Our Daughter 47
Impossible Garden 48
As One with Foot in Mouth 49
Like Freedom 50
Outlaws, According to the Movies 51
In the Erogenous Zone of the Body Politic 53
Notes 55
acknowledgments
I am grateful to the editors of the following publications
in which some of these poems first appeared:
American Literary Review, Black Warrior Review,
Boomerang!, Colorado Review, CutBank, Denver
Quarterly, Elixir, Fine Madness, First Intensity, Green
Mountains Review, Gulf Coast, Phoebe, Pleiades, Poet
Lore, Quarter after Eight, Seattle Review, Sonora Review,
Xantippe, andZYZZYVA.
This book would not have been possible without the
comments and encouragement of many people. I am
indebted to my teachers at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop,
Jorie Graham and Mark Levine for choosing the manu-
script, Brenda Hillman, Mary Wang, Sam Witt, D. A.
Powell, and Lary Kleeman.
Finally, I am forever grateful to my greatest poetic ally,
my wife, Kristen Hanlon.