Peter Cole
2007 MacArthur Award
Copper Canyon Press offers heartfelt congratulations to Peter Cole for his 2007 MacArthur Fellowship. Cole, who has translated the poems of Taha Muhammad Ali and many others, is honored for "offering a unique vision of the cultural, religious, and linguistic interactions that were and are possible among peoples of the Middle East." We are pleased and proud to acknowledge this esteemed recognition of his work.
So What, the New & Selected Poems of Taha Muhammad Ali, translated by Peter Cole
C.D. Wright
"Meanwhile the cars…"
Meanwhile the cars continued in a persistent flow down Closeburn Road.
The refrain to the rain would be a movement up and down the clefs of light.
Chlorophyll world. July. Great goblets of magnolialight.
Her head cooling against the car glass. The mind apprehends the white piano, her mother. Who played only what she chose who chose only to play, "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes."
A stadium emptied. The ruby progression of taillights. The eyes' ability to perceive a series of still images as continuous motion. Time lapse.
This wasn't movie traffic. There weren't twenty people to see Smoke.
At the drive-in. When they were young. The parents were young. The children falling asleep on the hood with the motor warm. Coating the ornamental swan with their prints. The projectionist's private life: shadows animating a wall.
"Never avert your eyes" (Kurosawa).
A photograph is a writing of the light. Photo Graphein.
More than magnolia, crepe myrtle is missed. The white bushes especially.
Against undifferentiated dark. It is unlike night.
She will still be up when we come in. Our floating host. She will be at the door in her pleated nightgown. Admit us into her air-conditioned nightgown. Her glory cloud.