Dorothea Lasky
The Star
Helen Frankenthaler is an evil eye
So I put her behind me that year
And hoped for the best
But even she knew
I was lying
Lying is godlike
I’m almost always lying
In a poem
All those women and their sadness
We think of the other dimensions as vast
Is it possible that other dimensions
Are very small
And when everyone just keeps writing sonnets
Are sonnets just platforms for the emotion
And if so
What kind
So I put her behind me that year
And hoped for the best
But even she knew
I was lying
Lying is godlike
I’m almost always lying
In a poem
All those women and their sadness
We think of the other dimensions as vast
Is it possible that other dimensions
Are very small
And when everyone just keeps writing sonnets
Are sonnets just platforms for the emotion
And if so
What kind
Fern
I think I shall name her fern
Which is what I decided when talking to you
Rocks and such
Things that are alive and are part of planet
Deserve to live
All night I spoke to you
A curled fetus under my stomach
It’s unearthly what one can speak to
The brilliant green of all of it
We must save
Walking backwards
Into a set of trees
There were no people
But the plants contained everything
The planets all poems
Two little wild ones
They curled their necks around each other
I repeated something silently
Everything alive
Is a reminder of itself
Which is what I decided when talking to you
Rocks and such
Things that are alive and are part of planet
Deserve to live
All night I spoke to you
A curled fetus under my stomach
It’s unearthly what one can speak to
The brilliant green of all of it
We must save
Walking backwards
Into a set of trees
There were no people
But the plants contained everything
The planets all poems
Two little wild ones
They curled their necks around each other
I repeated something silently
Everything alive
Is a reminder of itself
Poetry is Satanism
I am in here, I said to the devil
And went about my business with it looking at me
Was it bad or just impatience
And who is to say I knew the difference
Nevertheless I took a plane
Until I reached the flying saucer
I almost forgot about the ones who loved me!
He said that I should be careful what I wished for
But I was always careful what I wished for
And went about my business with it looking at me
Was it bad or just impatience
And who is to say I knew the difference
Nevertheless I took a plane
Until I reached the flying saucer
I almost forgot about the ones who loved me!
He said that I should be careful what I wished for
But I was always careful what I wished for
Dorothea Lasky has published collections of poetry including Milk (2018), ROME (2014), Thunderbird (2012), Black Life (2010), and AWE (2007), as well as several chapbooks, including Snakes (2017) and Poetry Is Not a Project (2010). She is the editor of Essays (2021) and co-editor of Open the Door: How to Excite Young People About Poetry (2013). In 2019, Lasky published Animal, a book of prose essays on the craft of poetry. Lasky’s poems have appeared in a number of publications, including the New Yorker, Paris Review, and American Poetry Review.
Dorothea Lasky was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. She earned a BA from Washington University, an MFA at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, a Masters in Arts Education from Harvard University, and a doctorate in Creativity and Education at the University of Pennsylvania. Lasky was awarded a Bagley Wright Fellowship in 2013, and currently, she is an associate professor of poetry at Columbia University, where she directs the poetry program.
Dorothea Lasky was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. She earned a BA from Washington University, an MFA at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, a Masters in Arts Education from Harvard University, and a doctorate in Creativity and Education at the University of Pennsylvania. Lasky was awarded a Bagley Wright Fellowship in 2013, and currently, she is an associate professor of poetry at Columbia University, where she directs the poetry program.