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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