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10 for 10: Ten Memorable Poems from Ten Years of LEVELER

 

For our ten-year anniversary, and to celebrate our magazine’s coming to a close, we selected ten poems that were memorable to us. Links below – enjoy the throwback!

 

 

A Brown Trout: Chris Caldemeyer: 12/06/09

http://www.levelerpoetry.com/a-brown-trout-levelheaded/

 

Favorite moment:

“To know instants—as / infant molecules / suspended between / limitations. It is to be / human. As tree she returns, / unending and unending.”

 

 

To Eat a Doughnut in the Dark, Alone: Heather McNaugher: 12/27/09

http://www.levelerpoetry.com/to-eat-a-doughnut-in-the-dark-alone-levelheaded/

 

Favorite moment:

Alternatively, to be a hawk – no, to be a man”

 

 

If Only to Wake When Night: Alexis Orgera: 12/26/10

http://www.levelerpoetry.com/if-only-to-wake-when-night-levelheaded/

 

Favorite moment:

“When night breaks the sky is a starless / fixed bluescreen / on the abandoned Dreamworks wagon”

 

 

from statues with interior arms: j/j hastain: 03/18/12

http://www.levelerpoetry.com/from-statues-with-interior-arms-levelheaded/

 

Favorite moment:

“A non-articulable gender is articulating itself. As an interior arm. As an arm that engages an always inward trajectory. As so many consecutive afternoons of impending.”

 

 

The Cellar in Ptuj: Tomaž Šalamun: 07/14/13

http://www.levelerpoetry.com/the-cellar-in-ptuj-levelheaded/

 

Favorite moment:

“you think you yourself / can choose when your root is yanked out / and given away.”

 

 

Beyoncé is Sorry for What She Won’t Feel: Morgan Parker: 09/21/14

http://www.levelerpoetry.com/beyonce-is-sorry-for-what-she-wont-feel-levelheaded/

 

Favorite moment:

“First Lady of desire, / I pant for our future. Like America / and wine, I am all legs.”

 

 

Letter to Nathan from a Dream Mall: Kate Garklavs: 08/31/15

http://www.levelerpoetry.com/letter-to-nathan-from-a-dream-mall-levelheaded/

 

Favorite moment:

“The sky through the skylight infinity / blue, the atrium prim with echo and reflected red / glare from the ghosts of light-up sneakers. I am / broke and haven’t a bad thought to my being.”

 

 

testimonial: Tilghman Goldsborough: 02/19/18

http://www.levelerpoetry.com/testimonial-levelheaded/

 

Favorite moment:

“There we shall form a new community of common spirit_ / discrete points connected: a cohesive whole greater than the sum of its parts / based on the Authentic Black Experience of darius rucker: a radical expression of Self that dissolves bodies in thought as they fall to their knees and rejoice”

 

 

La Ventanita: Violeta Gil Casado: 03/19/18

http://www.levelerpoetry.com/la-ventanita-levelheaded/

 

Favorite moment:

“Because La Ventanita sets in motion all my most basic mechanisms, just like it is supposed to do, I’m like everybody else, the day has come and I’m just like everybody else, I won’t, I don’t want to, stop listening to this song”

 

 

Ghazal Littoral: Rachel Reynolds: 02/11/19

http://www.levelerpoetry.com/ghazal-littoral-levelheaded/

 

Favorite moment:

“The beach a crush of tiny shells, / time’s cursive in their scrolls. / The lioness ocean in the conch / at my ear roaring Rachel, Rachel.”




Editors