The "Work in Progress" feature of the Farrar, Straus & Giroux website has some new poems by journalist-poet Eliza Griswold, who visits this coming Tuesday, September 27.
Here's an excerpt from her poem, "Libyan Proverbs":
...Learn to shave by shaving orphans.
He who is to be hanged can insult the Pasha.
In the house of a man who has been hanged
do not talk of rope. Much shouting and crowds
over a hedgehog’s slaughter. The funeral
is big but the corpse is a mouse.
I lick my grindstone and sleep in peace.
Griswold received the 2010 Rome Prize for poetry.
He who is to be hanged can insult the Pasha.
In the house of a man who has been hanged
do not talk of rope. Much shouting and crowds
over a hedgehog’s slaughter. The funeral
is big but the corpse is a mouse.
I lick my grindstone and sleep in peace.
Griswold received the 2010 Rome Prize for poetry.
