poem-a-day
I Invite My Parents to a Dinner Party
I Invite My Parents to a Dinner Party
In the invitation, I tell them for the seventeenth time (the fourth in writing), that I am gay. In the invitation, I include a picture of my boyfriend & write, You’ve met him two times. But this time, you will ask him things other than can you pass the whatever. You will ask him about him. You will enjoy dinner. You will be enjoyable. Please RSVP. They RSVP. They come. They sit at the table & ask my boyfriend the first of the conversation starters I slip them upon arrival: How is work going? I’m like the kid in Home Alone, orchestrating every movement of a proper family, as if a pair of scary yet deeply incompetent burglars is watching from the outside. My boyfriend responds in his chipper way. I pass my father a bowl of fish ball soup—So comforting, isn’t it? My mother smiles her best Sitting with Her Son’s Boyfriend Who Is a Boy Smile. I smile my Hurray for Doing a Little Better Smile. Everyone eats soup. Then, my mother turns to me, whispers in Mandarin, Is he coming with you for Thanksgiving? My good friend is & she wouldn’t like this. I’m like the kid in Home Alone, pulling on the string that makes my cardboard mother more motherly, except she is not cardboard, she is already, exceedingly my mother. Waiting for my answer. While my father opens up a Boston Globe, when the invitation clearly stated: No security blankets. I’m like the kid in Home Alone, except the home is my apartment, & I’m much older, & not alone, & not the one who needs to learn, has to—Remind me what’s in that recipe again, my boyfriend says to my mother, as though they have always, easily talked. As though no one has told him many times, what a nonlinear slapstick meets slasher flick meets psychological pit he is now co-starring in. Remind me, he says to our family.
Copyright © 2018 by Chen Chen. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 19, 2018, by the Academy of American Poets.
Copyright © 2018 by Chen Chen. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 19, 2018, by the Academy of American Poets.
Tracy K. Smith
Classic Books of American Poetry
This collection of books showcases the masterpieces of American poetry that have influenced—or promise to influence—generations of poets. Take a look.
These Poems
These poems
they are things that I do
in the dark
reaching for you
whoever you are
and
are you ready?
These words
they are stones in the water
running away
These skeletal lines
they are desperate arms for my longing and love.
I am a stranger
learning to worship the strangers
around me
whoever you are
whoever I may become.
Maya Angelou
Always on the Train
Writing poems about writing poems is like rolling bales of hay in Texas. Nothing but the horizon to stop you. But consider the railroad's edge of metal trash; bird perches, miles of telephone wires. What is so innocent as grazing cattle? If you think about it, it turns into words. Trash is so cheerful; flying up like grasshoppers in front of the reaper. The dust devil whirls it aloft; bronze candy wrappers, squares of clear plastic—windows on a house of air. Below the weedy edge in last year's mat, red and silver beer cans. In bits blown equally everywhere, the gaiety of flying paper and the black high flung patterns of flocking birds.
Like You
translated by Jack Hirschman
Like you I
love love, life, the sweet smell
of things, the sky-blue
landscape of January days.
And my blood boils up
and I laugh through eyes
that have known the buds of tears.
I believe the world is beautiful
and that poetry, like bread, is for everyone.
And that my veins don’t end in me
but in the unanimous blood
of those who struggle for life,
love,
little things,
landscape and bread,
the poetry of everyone.
Como Tú
Yo, como tu,
amo el amor, la vida, el dulce encanto
de las cosas, el paisaje
celeste de los días de enero.
También mi sangre bulle
y río por los ojos
que han conocido el brote de las lágrimas.
Creo que el mundo es bello,
que la poesía es como el pan, de todos.
Y que mis venas no terminan en mí
sino en la sange unánime
de los que luchan por la vida,
el amor,
las cosas,
el paisaje y el pan,
la poesía de todos.
Poetic Forms
Refresh and expand your poetic vocabulary with this collection of poetic forms, complete with historical contexts, examples, and more. For more on poetic forms, browse our selection of terms from Edward Hirsch’s A Poet’s Glossary or check out our quick teaching guide on essential poetic terms.
Jenny Xie
A Poet's Glossary
Read about poetic terms and forms from Edward Hirsch's A Poet's Glossary (Harcourt, 2014), a book ten years in the making that defines the art form of poetry.
Emily Dickinson
Walt Whitman
Shane McCrae
Poetry Is a Destructive Force
That's what misery is, Nothing to have at heart. It is to have or nothing. It is a thing to have, A lion, an ox in his breast, To feel it breathing there. Corazon, stout dog, Young ox, bow-legged bear, He tastes its blood, not spit. He is like a man In the body of a violent beast. Its muscles are his own . . . The lion sleeps in the sun. Its nose is on its paws. It can kill a man.
submit: american poets prizes
T. S. Eliot
Lesson Plans for Introducing Poetry
Bring poems into the classroom with these lesson plans, which are especially suited to introducing students to poetry and helping them become engaged and thoughtful readers.
Hieu Minh Nguyen
