Poetry. It's easy to say from outside, by DS Maolalai. Image: a harvester in a wheatfield. In the sky, a hawk. In the background, a mountain range made out of open envelopes.

It's easy to say from outside

they all write so well,

but then, they have space

to stretch out in. american

poets have it better

than anyone else. all that undiscovered

country could make anyone

make anything so easily. all that sky,

if it didn’t make you kill yourself.

I drove through it once – horizon

to stinking horizon. the disease

of the beauty – I wouldn’t go back.

cornfields and universal harvesters

running on diesel. hawks hovering over

the cut. and then there were mountains

and every occasional town

with the fat-floating sandwiches

and burning black coffee

in cafes which are what you’d imagine.

I don’t understand why they do

what they do to it. if I were american

I’d want to let everyone in.

DS Maolalai

DS Maolalai has been described by one editor as “a cosmopolitan poet” and another as “prolific, bordering on incontinent”. His work has been nominated thirteen times for BOTN, ten for the Pushcart and once for the Forward Prize, and released in three collections; Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden (Encircle Press, 2016), Sad Havoc Among the Birds (Turas Press, 2019) and Noble Rot (Turas Press, 2022).

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