The Palm Tree Piñata

 

I’m smacking around a piñata shaped like a palm tree. It is southern California, mid-summer. The palm tree piñata is swinging back-and-forth beneath the bright summer sun. It is my birthday. I’m thirty-eight years old. I don’t always act my age, yet I am wise beyond my years, people say. We are having a party to celebrate, a few of my childhood friends are in attendance and many Mexican cousins. We are drinking a mixture of Mexican beers, trendy hard seltzers, and sangria. Finally, I give the palm tree piñata …

Danger Music | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Danger Music

 

there’s
  a woman
  screaming

 

on the radio
  a cry
  no one

 

will hear
  can you hear
  the crackle

 

of flames
  making bright her
  husband’s torso

 

somewhere

Selections from While Percival Was Falling | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Selections from While Percival Was Falling

Selections from While Percival Was Falling

Reading by translator Jessica Cuello. (Scroll down to view and listen to the original poem.)

 

Percival’s song
is an unruly beast
a howling story
I …

BACKPACK

Reading by translator Mira Rosenthal

 

This world, along with several other worlds,
can fit into the outside pocket of my backpack
or in a bag from Switzerland procured
in a shop …

Self-Portrait Lined by Tomas Tranströmer | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Self-Portrait Lined by Tomas Tranströmer

I stood in a room that contained every moment

            it contained Tranströmer, insects, and charcoal

                          …

August Poetry Editor Connie Voisine | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

August Poetry Curator Connie Voisine

I Developed a Palate That Is Particular and Acute

Connie Voisine is Zócalo’s poetry editor, and the mastermind behind our 2022 Poetry Curator series, which features monthly takeovers of the poetry section by different guest curators. A professor of …