I recently received my contributor’s copy of the anthology desde Hong Kong and have been enjoying dipping into the collection of great tributes. One in particular stood out in my reading. I share it below to further celebrate this anthology’s publication.
In “Going Home,” British-Canadian poet Phoebe Tsang delves deep into an image (a la Paz) and has the subject matter, and the reader, come out different on the other side.
Going Home – Phoebe Tsang
At dawn, the carts glistened with wet scales
as if the fish were still alive,
not drowning for lack of water.
They slept just like the rest of us,
breathed city air.
As the sun rose, the glitter faded from their gills.
By noon, the last dregs were fins and bones
kicked to the gutter,
entrails slick under fishermen’s boots.
The fishermen gone home,
back to the sea.
***
Happy homing!
Jose
p.s. Information on ordering a copy of the anthology can be found here.
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Published by José Angel Araguz
José Angel Araguz is a CantoMundo fellow and the author of seven chapbooks as well as the collections Everything We Think We Hear, Small Fires, Until We Are Level Again, and, most recently, An Empty Pot’s Darkness. His poems, creative nonfiction, and reviews have appeared in Crab Creek Review, Prairie Schooner, New South, Poetry International, and The Bind. Born and raised in Corpus Christi, Texas, he runs the poetry blog The Friday Influence and composes erasure poems on the Instagram account @poetryamano. He is also a faculty member in Pine Manor College’s Solstice Low-Residency MFA program. With an MFA from New York University and a PhD from the University of Cincinnati, José is an Assistant Professor of English at Suffolk University in Boston where he also serves as Editor-in-Chief of Salamander Magazine.
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3 thoughts on “* more from desde Hong Kong”
This poem does a lot of work in just eleven lines. Profound. Thanks for sharing this. I also appreciate the introduction to this anthology.
This poem does a lot of work in just eleven lines. Profound. Thanks for sharing this. I also appreciate the introduction to this anthology.
Agreed – whole lives pass through the images! Glad you liked it, Andrea.
Ameen.