No. 39 Summer 2022

Benjamin Gucciardi A Poem Wants You to Be Broken

At ease the mind is free of need
for poetry. In owl song,
it hears owl song.

A poem wants you to be broken
and alone when it finds you,
so it can show you how it sees

your clenched fist opening,
the small, contoured feather
you’ve carried all along.


Benjamin Gucciardi is the author of West Portal (University of Utah Press, 2021), selected by Gabrielle Calvocoressi for the Agha Shahid Ali Prize in Poetry. Recent poems appear in Agni, American Poetry Review, and Poetry Daily.