Stadler Center Writers Series

Myronn Hardy
Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Poetry Reading
7 p.m. Bucknell Hall

 

 

Myronn Hardy is the winner of the Griot-Stadler Poetry Prize for his book Catastrophic Bliss, published by Bucknell University Press. Hardy is the author of two previous books of poems: Approaching the Center, winner of the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Award, and The Headless Saints, winner of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. He has received fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Annenberg Foundation, Djerassi, the Fundacião Sacatar, and Fundación Valparaiso. His poems have appeared in journals such as Ploughshares, Indiana Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, FIELD and elsewhere. He divides his time between New York City and Morocco.

 

This event is co-sponsored by the Griot Institute for Africana Studies and Bucknell University Press.

 

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Myronn Hardy

Crabs Fixate on Red

 

Palms catch orbs of wind.

Their motion      slow.

That hill is steep with one red road.

At the top      a mud house rests

on blocks.  Who is the boy?

His clothes almost erased with hard water.

Legs are boughs swathed in skin.  How can

he climb with that basket on his head?

Perhaps the pink towel draped across

the top reminds him of a girl's

tongue      raspberries in summer.

Blue crabs locked together      they

will never escape the strength

of straw      pierce their rose

sky     themselves     too perfect to shift.

Steel pot     water boils    salt    garlic    paprika.

There are screams in steam

no one hears    red as geraniums.