The Pieces A group poem If my hand had fallen into yours earlier, I might _______still be holding you. I’ll always remember what you told me: In order to build a castle, learn how to build a ____________________________house first. I’m excited and nervous at the same time. I can’t wait to come home. Listening to [...]

They Used to Dance On Saturday Nights By Gillian Devereux Aforementioned Productions, 2012, 34 p. ISBN 978-0-9823741-4-6 The carnival performers in Gillian Devereux’s They Used to Dance on Saturday Nights (Aforementioned Productions) are always, like Robert Lowell’s prostitutes, “freelancing out along the razor’s edge”, always subject to the fatalities of their trades—knife throwing, tightrope walking, [...]

Leah Umansky: In your second book, Swoon, you have a sequence of poems around “Women.” Now, in Woman Without Umbrella, you have a similar sequence at work. Did you know when you finished Swoon, that you would have a similar sequence in your next collection? Victoria Redel: The sequence in Swoon I saw in the [...]

LUPE’S DIAMONDS She had other nieces at least eight but mine was an expensive gift to never lose They were jagged freckles of light My aunts said let her wear her hair down no importa burnt red lipstick and diamond specks How I suffered from feeling blanched in a world inhabited by amber women who [...]

Naked Except for the Jewelry “And,” she said, “you must talk no more about ecstasy. It is a loneliness.” The woman wandered about picking up her shoes and silks. “You said you loved me,” the man said. “We tell lies,” she said, brushing her wonderful hair, naked except for the jewelry. “We try to believe.” [...]

MY SOLIDARITY We meet in a reflective trench and you are skeptical but then you begin to feel my solidarity like a short-haired snake between your legs. The snake starts to hustle, overweening the lip of pants. Let’s you and I never be cops to each other. Because we study elephant lore, and in all [...]

After writing a poem (never during or before the poem), ask yourself these questions: 1. Why is my lineation the way it is and is that the right shape for the poem? 2. Are my images predictable? Do shadows fall? Do I express myself in idioms and cliches rather than in a true voice. Most [...]