POETRY

The July/August (left) and September (right) 2017 issues of Poetry magazine.

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Poetry magazine has been firing on all cylinders lately.

First, the design of the covers for the July/August 2017 and September 2017 issues by Alexander Knowlton and Pentagram is wonderful. I love the different typefaces used for the POETRY lettering on the July/August issue and the minimalist "nested" typeface and color scheme used on the black background of the September issue.

Secondly, the editorial staff of Poetry are seeking out and serving up some of the best contemporary poetry.

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The July/August 2017 issue features Asian American Poets, many of whom I already read and know and many of whom were new to me. The issue opens with Aimee Nezhukumatathil's wonderful "Sea Church" and keeps going strong until it closes with Li-Young Lee's epic "Changing Places in the Fire" and the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center's "Culture Lab Manifesto" and accompanying "Culture Lab" images and artwork.

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As of this writing, my favorite poem in the July/August 2017 issue is "On Visiting the Franklin Park Conservatory & Botanical Gardens" by Khaty Xiong. I see, sense, and hear transformation, fragility, vulnerability, motherhood, a shifting of perspective—and all of it layered and confused and yet somehow concrete.

Listen to these beautiful lines:
As in a fever the boy runs back & does not see / the white morpho the way I must see it: / my personal moon stone-ripe in this foreign corner, / mother as fauna forever — inhuman & gazing.

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My September 2017 issue just arrived in the mail today, so I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but I'm especially looking forward to poems by Atsuro Riley, Patricia Lockwood, Joy Harjo, and Terrance Hayes.