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Mechanics Institute March Poet

A Project of San Francisco Poet Laureate devorah major



photo of Sarah Rosenthal

March Featured Poet:Sarah Rosenthal

Sarah Rosenthal is the author of three chapbooks, not-chicago (Melodeon Poetry Systems, 1998), sitings (a+bend Press, 2000), and How I Wrote This Story (Margin to Margin Press, 2001). She also teaches creative writing to adults privately and through local universities. She is a poet-in-residence for California Poets in the Schools and Kollage Community School for the Arts.

Recommended Books:

  • Waiting for God, Simone Weil
  • At the Sky’s Edge: Poems 1991-1996, Bei Dao
  • Crossing the Water: Transitional PoemsSylvia Plath
  • Point and Line, Thalia Field
  • Richard II William Shakespeare

she's so tired
by Sarah Rosenthal

          and so hungry
and she has to get up so early
          and she must fly on a plane
and she must answer when called upon
          and she must fit a size seven
          and she must seek silence
          and she has to perfume herself
          she must say “flowers of wet blue corn bathing in the river”
          she must name the device
          she must continue
          she must know the city
          she must visit the country
          she lays her head on polished wood
          the saucepan promises to heat the packet
          clouds crack up over their own joke
          the wood lays its head on her ear
          the laundry change collects
          red asserts itself in splotches
          invisible hands knead bread
          nobody wants her name
          why did you leave the room just then
          paisley hangs in a dark closet
          a tree is a different matter altogether
          do not simply say flower
          i want to know what this device is called
          utensils are piled in a corner
          the man who designed Strawberry Fields has died
          i am a dot floating on a map
          i am an orderly wheeling my patient



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