The Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize

2010

 

Two poems from Ravi Shankar's The New Transcendence followed by a note on the author   Blue Circus, Oil Paint on Canvas, 1950 “Mine alone is the land that exists in my soul I enter it without a passport like I do my own home” –Marc Chagall Polymorphous saturation                          oh blue          space, river without banks                          speculum mundi          there’s a cock in the corner                                   banging a drum          fish with a sly eye head a bed for supple coupling                          horse in green, coquette                                   lovingly decapitated          by cerulean shadow                          mane preened                                                    cooping up a man                                   delirious moon on violin          flecked orb, yellow orchestral                                                    depthless dancing                           to horn, cello, accordion          ring-wrangling Mediterranean nymph                                    oh blue                                                    lumière liberté                                    in a diagonal swath          a trapeze-artist swims                          upside down, rouged                                                    peacock crowned          belly round, breasts round                                    like a prayer                          that sometimes ends                                                    in laughter     Hitchhiker Obliquely, lashed by the North Wind, which doesn’t exist on the skin, like a mule I trudged through pisspots and crumbling crematoriums, sans passport, lewd as a turbine, unnoticed by the dark men with dogs. Flailed grain for a bed, headlights for lamplight, whatever I wanted, I stole, the moment a cashier rings up a purchase the perfect time to palm and pocket. Overhead the sky weighed a trillion tons, deformed topographical maps into letterforms. How exactly does milk of magnesium taste? I’ve never had it so good as when I confused a cactus for a circus and joined acrobats in dismount even though, it was pointed out to me later, I remained on the parquet. Hardly! I’m no cantaloupe shuddering in stalls, brain-skinned, shipped by multinationals. I’ve never wanted for a cul-de-sac or a man-o-war. Had I loaves for feet I’d eat myself.   © Ravi Shankar teaches at Central Connecticut State University, Fairfield University & City University of Hong Kong. He founded Drunken Boat, has won a Pushchart, been featured in the New York Times, appeared on BBC & NPR, & has written or edited seven books and chapbooks of poems, including the 2010 National Poetry Review Prize winner, Deepening Groove. Along with Tina Chang and Nathalie Handal, he edited Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from Asia, the Middle East & Beyond (W.W. Norton & Co.) which anthologizes poets from 61 countries, writing in over 40 different languages. Drunken Boat: http://www.drunkenboat.com Deepening Groove: http://www.amazon.com/Deepening-Groove-Ravi-Shankar/dp/1935716085 Language for a New Century: http://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?id=8428 ~#~ Read "Deepening Groove," winner of the 2010 National Poetry Review Press Prize: http://www.amazon.com/Deepening-Groove-Ravi-Shankar/dp/1935716085 ~#~ Follow @empurpler & @drunkenboat on Twitter ~#~ Check out Drunken Boat #13: http://www.drunkenboat.com, with features on /Slant/Sex/, First Peoples, Plural. Plus poetry by Tomaž Šalamun, a multimedia folio of nonfiction on Music with original works by essayists including Rick Moody, Lia Purpura & Tim Seibles, new fiction by Adania Shibli, and the latest photography, sound, and installation art. Celebrating over a decade in existence.   "Blue Circus: Oil Paint on Canvas, 1950" first appeared in Ambit, and "Hitchhiker" first appeared in Third Coast.