The Best American Poetry 2021 Read online

  housewarming hand-me-down from my cousin, who

  clearly, and incorrectly, thought this was a good idea

  With the help of a little panic,

  sparkling water and a washcloth,

  I am stunned by how quickly the wine washes out,

  how I was sure this mistake would find me

  every day with its gaping mouth, reminding me

  of my own propensity for failure

  and yet, here I am

  with this clean slate

  The rug is made of fur,

  which means it died

  to be here

  It reminds me of my own survival

  and everyone who has taught me

  to shake loose the shadow of death

  I think of inheritance, how this rug

  was passed on to me through blood,

  how this animal gave its blood

  so that I may receive the gift of its death

  and be grateful for it

  I think of our inability

  to control stories of origin

  how history does not wash away

  with water and a good scrub

  I think of evolution,

  what it means to make it through

  this world with your skin intact,

  how flesh is fragile

  but makes a needle and thread

  of itself when necessary

  I think of all that I have inherited,

  all the bodies buried for me to be here

  and stay here, how I was born with grief

  and gratitude in my bones

  And I think of legacy,

  how I come from a long line of sorcerers

  who make good work of building

  joy from absolutely nothing

  And what can I do with that

  but pour another glass,

  thank the stars

  for this sorceress blood

  and keep pressing forward

  from Poem-a-Day

  SHELLEY WONG How to Live in Southern California

  Stay in the car and move from one air-conditioned location

  to another chill location, perhaps in a tour of movie theaters.

  After a long winter back east, 76 percent of California’s population

  is facing abnormal dryness or drought. My family went

  to Palos Verdes to look for gray whales, where the water was rough

  and edged with mansions. As of June 19, 2018, 3 percent

  is affected by extreme or exceptional drought. The Pacific Ocean

  is a stage for an altar or a talk show. On the boat, my mother said,

  “Don’t turn your back on the ocean.” Drive down Pacific Coast Highway

  in a long, curving line—past sandal palaces, neon seafood shacks,

  and offshore oil rigs—while listening to Fleetwood Mac, Katy Perry,

  and Frank Ocean. Since the 1800s, my family has lived

  along the West Coast, from Seattle to San Francisco to Long Beach,

  where the sun so often set without our watching. Come to Disneyland,

  the Hollywood sign, to paradise-by-the-highway. At 3 a.m., there’s always

  another milkshake, another strike to roll in the bowling alley

  of an Art Deco hotel. After discussing polygamy in Utah in 1875,

  President Ulysses S. Grant said, “I invite the attention of Congress

  to another, though perhaps no less an evil—the importation

  of Chinese women, but few of whom are brought to our shores

  to pursue honorable or useful occupations.” The spectrum of drought conditions

  is color-coded from yellow to dark red. In Los Angeles, people drive

  for the experience of driving, to be at the beach and in the hills

  within the same hour. The drought website is maintained

  by the National Drought Mitigation Center. Walk out

  to the end of the pier. The good life is when you don’t feel

  the weather. With sunglasses, you own a particular glamour.

  from The Kenyon Review

  JOHN YAU Overnight

  In Memory of Paul Violi (1944–2011)

  I did not realize that you were fading from sight

  I don’t believe I could have helped with the transition

  You most likely would have made a joke of it

  Did you hear about the two donkeys stuck in an airshaft

  I don’t believe I could have helped with the transition

  The doorway leading to the valleys of dust is always open

  Did you hear about the two donkeys stuck in an airshaft

  You might call this the first of many red herrings

  The doorway leading to the valleys of dust is always open

  The window overlooking the sea is part of the dream

  You might call this the first of many red herrings

  The shield you were given as a child seldom worked

  The window overlooking the sea is part of the dream

  One by one the words leave you, even this one

  The shield you were given as a child seldom worked

  The sword is made of air before you knew it

  One by one the words leave you, even this one

  I did not realize that you were fading from sight

  The sword is made of air before you knew it

  You most likely would have made a joke of it

  from Hambone

  MONICA YOUN Caution (from “Deracinations: Seven Sonigrams”)

  Frisky, her canine sidekick,

  (she’d named him when she was 6),

  had taken off again, seeing his chance

  when she let him out to urinate,

  tunneling under the cedar stakes

  of the fence (as was his much-denounced

  tendency) to make his social rounds

  of the neighborhood. She sighed.

  It was 10pm on Saturday night,

  her parents were at the Korean church

  for choir practice, and, conscientious,

  she couldn’t let the dog run loose

  all night (not since he, contrite,

  had once returned with an unsigned

  note duct-taped to his collar: I’ll shoot

  this fucking dog if I see him in my yard!)

  Honestly, Frisky, though cute,

  was a pain in the ass. Untrained,

  he had the bad habit of chasing

  mail carriers, acquaintances (once

  he knocked a pregnant stranger

  off her bike). Only Asians, for some reason,

  were exempt from these attacks.

  He thinks we all look alike,

  they tittered. She knew, that night,

  where he was: the faux-Tudor estate

  across the lake: the Coates’ residence.

  She was in homeroom with their son, Trey.

  The cool kids had handed around

  fliers for a kegger at the Coates’

  that Saturday, advertising a set

  by his band White Minority (Trey

  was both lead guitar and lead singer).

  Frisky, though half her size (and,

  moreover, spayed) nonetheless

  liked to sniff around the Coates’

  German shepherd, Bitch (that

  was her name. Ha ha.) She didn’t

  want to knock at the front door,

  asking for her dog, endure the sneers,

  awkward, avoiding eye contact,

  while they searched the dog out.

  She didn’t want to crouch

  down in front of them to attach

  the leash—the scenario nauseated her.

  Luckily, another course of action

  occurred to her: she could row across

  the lake in her family’s canoe,

  skulk across the yard unnoticed

  till she located the truant,

  return to her own home, unseen.

  None
theless, she put on eyeshadow,

  lipgloss, a cute (but not too cute)

  top. Best to be inconspicuous,

  she dissembled. (She cherished

  a secret crush on Trey, unconfessed

  even to herself.) Her trusty canoe cut

  through the darkness—her destination

  shining like a signal fire. She docked.

  What the fucking fuck? A semi-nude

  couple in an Adirondack chair

  cussed her out, then carried on.

  The amber floodlight scattered

  citrines across a swathe of dark grass.

  The yellow brick road, she thought,

  skirting it. Friiiiiisky! she hissed.

  By the poolhouse the dog, serene

  for once, luxuriated—an odalisque.

  His tail smacked the concrete

  like a slow clap. You idiot,

  she scolded, snapped on

  the leash, retraced her route.

  Another curse from the now entirely

  unclothed interrupted inamorati,

  but otherwise their surreptitious exit

  passed undetected. Success!

  Home by 10:30, well in advance

  of her unsuspecting parents’ return. Not

  till Monday did she learn the sequence

  of events later… much later… that night:

  a dirty-blond teenaged girl with “issues,”

  with clear indicators of “ideation”

  (a new term-of-art to her)—that is,

  according to the Coates. A drunken

  semi-conscious round of Russian roulette

  (usually, even at the hardest-core

  gatherings, understood to be charade.)

  But this time, the game was both truth

  and dare. “A tragic accident,”

  the principal said, when she cut short

  the morning’s announcements.

  Oh god, y’all! The girl confided

  to her nerdy but upstanding cohort,

  (this wasn’t technically inaccurate)

  I was there that night! I was there!

  from Ploughshares

  KEVIN YOUNG Dog Tags

  Of us there is

  always less.

  The days hammer

  past, artificial daisies

  at the grave.

  Words I didn’t choose

  for my father’s headstone

  & those that came instead

  to live around my neck,

  dog tags a tin

  pendulum on my chest.

  On my mother’s side,

  my cousin, too young,

  dirt a pile above her

  but no stone, nothing

  but the tinfoil name

  from the funeral home—

  the fresh plastic

  flowers that still wilt

  in this heat.

  At blackjack

  she lost

  everything my great-

  aunt & -uncle had saved,

  even their low ranch

  where I first

  knew blue glass, plastic

  covering the rug

  & the good couch

  in the sitting room

  no one dared sit.

  The prickly underside

  of the clear runner a cactus

  you couldn’t help

  but touch. Uncle Wilmer’s

  pickup long paid off

  now stares empty

  under somebody

  else’s tree. The liars

  & book-cookers

  came with their knives

  offering her

  seconds, & she

  sat & ate—

  once you’ve tasted

  the stone-filled fruit

  of the underworld

  you may never return.

  They took everything

  from her

  my mother says, both

  of us shaking

  our heads, disbelieving

  how exacting

  death is, how deep

  the shade—

  except breath.

  She was in debt

  & dead within

  a year, went through money

  like water—

  And that didn’t

  last long either.

  from Ploughshares

  CONTRIBUTORS’ NOTES AND COMMENTS

  ROSA ALCALÁ was born in Paterson, New Jersey, in 1969. She is the author of three books of poetry, most recently MyOTHER TONGUE (Futurepoem, 2017). The recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowship, she is the editor and cotranslator of New & Selected Poems of Cecilia Vicuña (Kelsey Street Press, 2018). Her work was chosen for The Best American Poetry 2019. She is a professor of creative writing at the University of Texas at El Paso, and teaches in its Bilingual MFA Program.

  Of “The Pyramid Scheme,” Alcalá writes: “I can’t help but think of the devastating impact that COVID-19 has had on nursing homes, although this poem was written long before the pandemic began. I am haunted by the image of someone like my mother, confined to a room, unable to visit with loved ones except through a window. Someone like my mother, dying alone. I think, too, about the underpaid and overworked nurses and aides who took care of my mother, who spoke to her in Spanish, and therefore grounded her, who brought her the food she liked when they thought she was getting too thin. My mother died a few years ago, but do her caretakers continue on under these terrible circumstances? Do they fear for their own lives but have no choice but go to work? I think of my aunt, who died during the pandemic, two decades after she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and who lived for many years in a nursing home. Whose funeral I watched on YouTube, because only her children were allowed at the service. What I mean to say is that the anger I express in this poem, directed mainly at a system that privileges some bodies above others, that does not care about the sick and the elderly, has not ‘mellowed.’ COVID-19 has simply exposed what was already broken.”

  LAUREN K. ALLEYNE was born in 1979 and raised in Trinidad and Tobago. She is the author of two collections of poetry, Difficult Fruit (Peepal Tree Press, 2014) and Honeyfish (New Issues & Peepal Tree, 2019), and coeditor of Furious Flower: Seeding the Future of African American Poetry (Northwestern, 2020). She lives in Harrisonburg, Virginia, where she is an associate professor of English at James Madison University, and the assistant director of the Furious Flower Poetry Center. More information is available at www.laurenkalleyne.com.

  Of “Divination,” Alleyne writes: “In general, I am fascinated by the fact and idea of ‘remains’ and the way we can use them to read backward, gleaning information about a life. However, I encountered these remains in a workshop setting, as a prompt, and in that context, without any connection to the creature in its ‘before,’ I was surprised to find that I was less interested in what it had been than what it was becoming, and the strange journey this body was having. It struck me that remains are also the weird afterlife of the body itself, rather than just testimony of a prior life. The poem seeks, I think, to capture that train of thought.”

  JABARI ASIM was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1962. He writes poetry (Stop and Frisk); fiction (A Taste of Honey, Only The Strong [all from Bloomsday] and the forthcoming Yonder); nonfiction (The N Word, We Can’t Breathe); and children’s books, including Preaching to the Chickens and A Child’s Introduction to African American History. He directs the MFA program in creative writing at Emerson College.

  Of “Some Call It God,” Asim writes: “In working toward a constructive disruption of my idea of the Divine, I’m embracing the notion of God as Funk, an irresistible impulse to drop everything and move. I can think of few experiences holier than responding to rhythm, whether it’s coming from the beat of a drum or a church matron humming her favorite hymn.”

  JOSHUA BENNETT is the Mellon Assistant Professor of English and creative writing at Dartmouth. His three books of poetry and criticism
are The Sobbing School (Penguin, 2016), winner of the National Poetry Series; Being Property Once Myself (Harvard University Press, 2020); and Owed (Penguin, 2020). Bennett earned his PhD in English from Princeton University, and an MA in Theatre and Performance Studies from the University of Warwick, where he was a Marshall Scholar. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ford Foundation, MIT, and the Society of Fellows at Harvard University. His first work of narrative nonfiction, Spoken Word: A Cultural History, is forthcoming from Knopf.

  Bennett writes: “I wrote ‘Benediction’ back when I lived in New York City. Rereading the poem now, I’m reminded of everything I love about that place. Uptown in particular. Harlem and Washington Heights, all that those neighborhoods taught me from the time I was a small boy about what it meant to do one’s best to live and die with dignity. The poem is part of a sequence that is at the core of a new book I’m writing about black disposability, ecological catastrophe, and fatherhood. It recalls a world before the pandemic. It gestures toward the one we are building together, even now, in the midst of it. And the future world already on its way.”

  Born in 1981 and raised in Shreveport, Louisiana, DESTINY O. BIRDSONG is a poet, essayist, and fiction writer who lives and works in Nashville, Tennessee. Her debut poetry collection, Negotiations, was published by Tin House Books in October 2020, and her debut novel is forthcoming from Grand Central in 2022. Her work has received support from Cave Canem, Callaloo, Jack Jones Literary Arts, Pink Door, MacDowell, the Ragdale Foundation, and the Tin House Summer Workshop.

  Of “love poem that ends at popeyes,” Birdsong writes: “I believe I write best about the transformative power of love when I’m narrating from a hopeless place, and this poem is one such instance. It was Valentine’s Day 2018, and I was the sickest and the saddest I’d been in a long time. I was lying in bed trying to make myself comfortable, but I was also hungry and didn’t want to go out for food, so I decided to write about what I craved. I also really wanted to write a poem where I indulged my most pitiful, maudlin sentiments about loneliness, but it ultimately turned into an exploration of desire, failed/found tenderness, self-detachment from infatuation/objectification, and of course, hope. It’s one of those poems that read me as I wrote it. And although I knew how it would end before I began, I didn’t know that writing it would make me feel a little less pitiful, a little more loved, and a little more satisfied with being alone.