Author Archive: Zocalo Poetry

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Poem Written in the Manner of Billy Collins

October 10, 2014 |

POEM WRITTEN IN THE MANNER OF BILLY COLLINS

First I take out the reference to global warming,
and the extinction of the blue-backed frog,
and in addition I delete any sappy, victim-like
particulars about my childhood.

I replace the checkpoint in Syria,
and the car speeding toward it
with a cup of coffee made from fine-ground Abyssinian beans
and a string quartet on the radio, playing,
I don’t know, something by Chopin.

With a small bottle of White-Out
and the accompanying exquisite little brush,
I erase the part about the gun
used by the sergeant from Afghanistan
to blow off his commander’s head.

I paint out the fashion model
with the fantastic cheekbones
who starved herself to death,
and the billionaire who gave
every player on his football team a Cadillac

until finally there is only a clean white page, like a living room floor
where a child is on his hands and knees,
feeding a piece of lettuce to a guinea pig,

petting it softly with one finger,
thinking hard and deciding
to change its name from Joe, to Josephine.

                                                                                — Tony Hoagland

Tony Hoagland, whose collections of poems include Donkey Gospel and What Narcissism Means to Me, studied with Steve Orlen and Jon Anderson at the University of Arizona in the 80s, and spent a considerable number of hours without clothes on in Sabino and Reddington Canyons.

Tony Hoagland, whose collections of poems include Donkey Gospel and What Narcissism Means to Me, studied with Steve Orlen and Jon Anderson at the University of Arizona in the 80s, and spent a considerable number of hours without clothes on in Sabino and Reddington Canyons.

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Zócalo Magazine invites poets with Tucson connections to submit up
to three original, previously unpublished (including online) poems, any
style, 40 line limit per poem.  Simultaneous submissions OK if you notify
us ASAP of acceptance elsewhere. Please include contact information on
each page of your manuscript. All manuscripts must be typed and accompanied
by a self-addressed, stamped envelope (SASE).  Mss. won’t be returned.
Payment is one year’s subscription to Zócalo, which acquires first North American
rights on publication; author may re-publish with acknowledgment to Zócalo.
The poetry co-editors are Jefferson Carter and Michael Gessner.
Address submissions to Zócalo, Poetry, PO Box 1171, Tucson, AZ, 85702.

Zocalo Poetry – September

August 31, 2014 |

Their Music 

Rats of the air, winged vermin, the broadcaster
spits into the microphone, and he could mean
sad foreigners, unwanted refugees, homeless
epithets assaulting and pockmarking the chinaberry trees
with the bb’s fired by boys trying
to cleanse the branches and roofs of
the fornicating wings of the air. Pigeons
nest all the time in this climate; even now
two are thrashing their way through the dry husks
of the palm into its green succulent center
to feed their young. Someone on the radio says
why don’t you ever see a baby pigeon, though
they breed like rats, and I remember
in the nest, how ugly the young were,
blotched and naked, and how I loved them. Loved them most
that morning when I could love myself
in giving them their freedom, flinging open the three doors
of my sister’s cages, and the 160 homing pigeons
she’d kept there for years like a captive cloud
swirled into the desert air to find their own compass,
to home in on their own longitude and latitude.
So now two are cooing and strutting
on the neighbor’s tiles, and two are mating
again beside the air conditioner, making it vibrate
and shake, sending the sounds of pigeon love
moaning down into the room. For they do love,
it’s clear, from the way those two nestle so closely
together, perched on the narrow of a single post;
for hours, they preen each other, rub
necks and breasts together, murmuring
in those low tones that travel down
into our houses, into the sterile white
sepulchers of our hearts, as if we could speak
the language of birds: thrive upon nothing,
be driven by nothing, be obedient
to nothing but love.

– Rebecca Seiferle, author of  Wild Tongue, is Tucson’s Poet Laureate.

Rebecca Seiferle, Tucson's Poet Laureate Photo: Christine Krikliwy, 2002. Courtesy of The University of Arizona Poetry Center. Photograph copyright Arizona Board of Regents

Rebecca Seiferle, Tucson’s Poet Laureate
Photo: Christine Krikliwy, 2002. Courtesy of The University of Arizona Poetry Center. Photograph copyright Arizona Board of Regents

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Zócalo Magazine invites poets with Tucson connections to submit up
to three original, previously unpublished (including online) poems, any
style, 40 line limit per poem.  Our only criterion is excellence.  No online
submissions.  Simultaneous submissions OK if you notify us ASAP of acceptance
elsewhere. Please include contact information on each page of your manuscript.
All manuscripts must be typed and accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped
envelope (SASE).  Unless a SASE is enclosed, you won’t hear from us unless
we are interested in publishing your poem.  Mss. won’t be returned.  Payment
in contributor’s copies.  Zócalo acquires first North American rights on publi-
cation; author may re-publish with acknowledgment to Zócalo.  The poetry
co-editors are Jefferson Carter and Michael Gessner. Address submissions
to Zócalo, c/o DJR PC, 2701 E. Speedway Blvd. #203, Tucson, 85716.