I Am Not I

by Juan Ramón Jiménez

I am not I.
        I am this one
walking beside me whom I do not see,
whom at times I manage to visit,
and whom at other times I forget;
the one who remains silent when I talk,
the one who forgives, sweet, when I hate,
the one who takes a walk where I am not,
the one who will remain standing when I die.

---

Today is Poem in Your Pocket Day, a celebration that encourages people to carry a poem with them—literally in a pocket, a wallet, or on a phone—and share it with others throughout the day. It’s a simple idea, but a powerful one: that poetry is not meant to sit quietly on a shelf, but to travel with us, to meet us where we are, and perhaps to say something we didn’t know we needed to hear.

When I started thinking about what poem I wanted to carry today, I realized I wanted something about finding oneself. Not in the grand, dramatic sense, but in the quieter, more honest way that happens over time—through reflection, contradiction, and those moments when we catch a glimpse of who we really are.

That’s what led me to this poem.

Jiménez writes of a self that is both present and just out of reach—a companion we walk beside but do not fully know. It’s a haunting idea, but also a comforting one. There is a part of us that is patient, that forgives, that waits for us to catch up to it. A self that is perhaps truer than the one we show to the world.

I think many of us, especially those of us who have had to navigate questions of identity, faith, or belonging, know this feeling well. There is the self we’ve been told to be, the self we’ve tried to be, and somewhere alongside us, the self we are becoming.

Poetry has a way of naming that space.

If I were to carry a poem in my pocket today, it would be this one—not because it gives me answers, but because it reminds me that the search itself is part of the journey. That perhaps finding oneself is not about arriving somewhere new, but about recognizing the one who has been walking beside us all along.

About the Poem

“I Am Not I” is a brief but deeply philosophical meditation on identity. In just a few lines, Jiménez presents the self as divided—one part visible and active, the other quiet, observant, and enduring.

The poem resists a fixed definition of identity. Instead, it suggests that who we are is layered:

• the outward self that speaks and acts
• the inward self that watches, forgives, and persists

The final line—“the one who will remain standing when I die”—adds a spiritual dimension, hinting at a self that transcends the physical or temporal. Whether read psychologically, philosophically, or spiritually, the poem invites us to consider that our truest self may not always be the one we immediately recognize.

Its brevity is part of its power. Like the best “pocket poems,” it can be read in a moment but linger in the mind far longer.

---

About the Poet

Juan Ramón Jiménez (1881–1958) was a Spanish poet and one of the most important literary figures of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1956 for his lyrical poetry, which is known for its clarity, emotional depth, and pursuit of what he called “pure poetry.”

Jiménez’s work often explores themes of beauty, memory, and the inner life. His writing evolved over time from richly ornamented early poems to a more stripped-down, essential style—seeking precision and truth in language.

He is perhaps best known for Platero y yo, a poetic prose work beloved for its tenderness and reflection on life and loss. Though widely read, especially in the Spanish-speaking world, many of his shorter lyrical poems—like “I Am Not I”—continue to resonate for their quiet insight into the human experience.

---

What poem would you carry in your pocket today?

The Hug
By Thom Gunn

It was your birthday, we had drunk and dined

    Half of the night with our old friend

        Who’d showed us in the end

    To a bed I reached in one drunk stride.

        Already I lay snug,

And drowsy with the wine dozed on one side.

I dozed, I slept. My sleep broke on a hug,

        Suddenly, from behind,

In which the full lengths of our bodies pressed:

        Your instep to my heel,

    My shoulder-blades against your chest.

    It was not sex, but I could feel

    The whole strength of your body set,

           Or braced, to mine,

        And locking me to you

    As if we were still twenty-two

    When our grand passion had not yet

        Become familial.

    My quick sleep had deleted all

    Of intervening time and place.

        I only knew

The stay of your secure firm dry embrace.

---

About the Poem

Last night I had a dream about the guy I had a crush on in high school. In the dream, he had brought his son to visit my university because the kid wanted to attend a military academy that would accept him for being gay. My old crush had not known I worked there and was on an admissions tour that included a short visit to the museum. I happened to be walking through the museum when I saw him and immediately recognized him. I’ve changed a lot since high school but he barely had. I called his name and he turned around. At first he didn’t recognize me and I told him who I was. He was so happy to see me that he hugged me. That’s when I woke up. I woke up very aroused and it took me a bit to fall back asleep, but even though it was not an erotic dream, being in his arms was enough to arouse me. Anyway, it made me remember Thom Gunn’s poem “The Hug” even though the narrative of the poem is nothing like my dream.

What Gunn captures so beautifully here—and what my dream unexpectedly echoed—is the quiet power of physical closeness that exists outside of overt sexuality. The poem insists, almost defensively, “It was not sex,” and yet the intimacy it describes is unmistakably charged. The body remembers what the mind might try to categorize differently. A simple embrace becomes a kind of time machine, collapsing years into a single moment of contact.

That’s what struck me most when I woke up: not desire in any explicit sense, but the memory of being held—of being known physically, instinctively, without explanation. Gunn’s speaker experiences the same phenomenon. Sleep erases “intervening time and place,” and in that suspended moment, the past returns not as memory but as sensation. The body pressed against another body becomes a language of its own, one that speaks of history, affection, and perhaps even a love that has changed shape but not disappeared.

There’s something profoundly human—and quietly queer—about that. So often, queer intimacy has had to exist in these in-between spaces, where touch carries meanings that words cannot safely express. A hug becomes not just comfort, but recognition. Not just familiarity, but longing. Not just presence, but history.

And maybe that’s why the poem lingers. It reminds us that intimacy isn’t always loud or dramatic. Sometimes, it’s as simple—and as overwhelming—as waking up in someone’s arms.

One of the most striking tensions in “The Hug” lies in the line, “It was not sex, but…” Why does Gunn feel the need to make that distinction—and what does it reveal about the nature of intimacy in the poem?

On the surface, the poem draws a boundary between physical affection and sexual activity. However, everything that follows that line complicates the distinction. The speaker is acutely aware of the other man’s body: its strength, its positioning, the way it “locks” them together. The embrace is described in deeply physical, almost sensual terms, suggesting that the experience exists on a spectrum rather than within a strict category.

This raises an important question: is Gunn diminishing the eroticism of the moment, or is he expanding our understanding of what intimacy can be? The hug becomes a space where emotional history, bodily memory, and desire converge—without needing to resolve into explicit sexuality. In doing so, the poem challenges the reader to reconsider the boundaries we place on physical connection.

Ultimately, “The Hug” suggests that intimacy is not defined solely by sexual acts, but by presence, memory, and the profound recognition of another body against one’s own.

---

About the Poet

Thom Gunn (1929–2004) was an Anglo-American poet known for his precise language, formal control, and evolving thematic interests. Born in England, he later moved to the United States, where he became associated with the San Francisco literary scene.

Gunn’s early work was often formal and restrained, but over time, his poetry grew more experimental and personal, particularly as he began to write more openly about gay life and relationships. His work frequently explores themes of identity, physicality, desire, and the tension between control and freedom.

In later collections, especially those written during the AIDS crisis, Gunn’s poetry took on a deeply emotional and elegiac tone, reflecting both personal loss and broader communal grief. “The Hug,” while quieter and more intimate than some of his other works, reflects his enduring interest in the body—not just as a site of desire, but as a vessel of memory, connection, and meaning.

If—
by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son.

⸻

About the Poem

“If—” is perhaps the most famous poem by Rudyard Kipling, first published in 1910 in his collection Rewards and Fairies. Written as paternal advice to his son, the poem reads like a moral blueprint—an instruction manual for how to live with integrity, resilience, and balance.

Structurally, the poem is built on a series of conditional statements—“If you can…”—that accumulate into a final promise: a life fully realized. Kipling’s language is simple but powerful, relying on rhythm, repetition, and contrast. Each stanza presents a set of virtues, often framed through paradox: confidence balanced with humility, ambition tempered by restraint, and emotional strength paired with compassion.

At its core, the poem reflects a philosophy often described as the “golden mean”—a middle path between extremes. Kipling emphasizes stoicism and self-mastery, urging the reader to remain steady in the face of chaos, to endure loss without complaint, and to approach both triumph and disaster with equal composure.

While the final line—“you’ll be a Man, my son”—reflects the gendered language of its time, the virtues Kipling outlines transcend that limitation. They speak to a broader ideal of human character: one grounded in patience, courage, humility, and perseverance.

What has always made “If—” endure is not just its advice, but its challenge.

This is not an easy poem. Kipling sets an almost impossibly high bar. To remain calm when blamed unfairly, to trust yourself while acknowledging doubt, to rebuild your life without bitterness after losing everything—these are not everyday accomplishments. They are lifelong pursuits.

And yet, there is something deeply compelling about that ideal.

The poem asks us to hold contradictions in tension: to dream, but not be ruled by dreams; to think, but not become lost in thought; to engage fully with the world, but not be consumed by it. In many ways, it’s a call to balance—to live fully without losing oneself.

For me, one of the most striking lines has always been the idea of treating “Triumph and Disaster… just the same.” In a world that constantly pushes us toward extremes—celebrating success as everything and fearing failure as final—Kipling reminds us that both are temporary. Neither defines us unless we allow it to.

There’s also something quietly powerful in the poem’s emphasis on endurance. Not flashy success, not brilliance, but the simple, stubborn act of holding on:

“Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’”

That line feels especially relevant in moments when life is overwhelming—when the best we can do is keep going, even when we feel emptied out.

At the same time, it’s worth acknowledging that Kipling’s vision of strength is very much rooted in a particular historical ideal of masculinity—stoic, restrained, emotionally controlled. Today, we might read the poem with a more nuanced lens, recognizing that vulnerability, openness, and emotional expression are also forms of strength.

Even so, the heart of the poem remains meaningful. It’s not really about becoming “a Man” in a narrow sense—it’s about becoming whole. About striving, however imperfectly, toward a life of integrity and balance.

⸻

About the Author

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) was a British writer and poet, born in India during the height of the British Empire. He is best known for works such as The Jungle Book, Kim, and the poem “If—,” all of which reflect his fascination with empire, identity, and moral character.

Kipling became the first English-language writer to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907, recognized for his storytelling and vivid prose. His work often blends adventure with moral instruction, and his poetry in particular has a didactic, almost instructional quality.

However, Kipling’s legacy is complex. His association with British imperialism has led to criticism, especially in modern readings of his work. Poems like “The White Man’s Burden” have sparked ongoing debate about colonial attitudes embedded in his writing.

“If—,” however, stands somewhat apart. Rather than focusing on empire, it turns inward—offering a personal code of conduct that continues to resonate with readers around the world. It remains one of the most quoted and beloved poems in the English language, not because it is easy, but because it dares to define what it means to live well.

“It was deep April, and the morn]
By Michael Field

It was deep April, and the morn
Shakspear was born;
The world was on us, pressing sore;
My Love and I took hands and swore,
Against the world, to be
Poets and lovers ever more,
To laugh and dream on Lethe’s shore,
To sing to Charon in his boat,
Heartening the timid souls afloat;
Of judgment never to take heed,
But to those fast-locked souls to speed,
Who never from Apollo fled,
Who spent no hour among the dead;
Continually
With them to dwell,
Indifferent to heaven and hell.

⸻

About the Poem

There is something quietly defiant in this poem—something that feels almost like a vow whispered between two people standing just outside the world’s expectations.

“It was deep April,” the season of renewal, of rebirth—and on the morning of William Shakespeare’s birth, no less. That detail matters. It situates the poem in a lineage of art, as if the speaker and their beloved are consciously stepping into a tradition of creation, of beauty, of daring to live poetically in a world that often resists it.

“The world was on us, pressing sore.” That line lands with weight. It feels familiar. There are times—especially for those of us who have lived at the margins in one way or another—when the world presses in, insists on conformity, demands silence, or at least compromise.

And yet, the response here is not retreat. It is a kind of sacred rebellion.

“My Love and I took hands and swore…”

There’s intimacy in that gesture, but also resolve. To be “poets and lovers ever more” is not simply romantic—it is a declaration of identity. To choose love, to choose creativity, to choose joy in the face of pressure is itself an act of resistance.

The classical imagery deepens that sense of rebellion. To laugh on the shores of Lethe—the river of forgetting—to sing to Charon as souls cross into death: these are not somber, fearful images here. They are transformed. The lovers become companions even to the dead, offering courage, song, and presence.

And perhaps most striking of all: “Indifferent to heaven and hell.”

Not indifferent in the sense of apathy, but in the sense of freedom. A refusal to let external systems of judgment—whether divine or social—dictate the worth of their love or their art.

There’s something deeply moving about that. To live in such a way that love and creativity are not contingent on approval. To dwell, continually, among those who never fled from inspiration—those who chose life, even when the world pressed hard against them.

It is, in its own way, a quiet kind of salvation.

This poem is both a love poem and an artistic manifesto. Written in the late 19th century, it reflects a commitment not only to romantic devotion but to a shared life of creative purpose.

The reference to Lethe, Charon, and Apollo draws heavily on Greek mythology, situating the lovers within a timeless, almost mythic landscape. These allusions elevate their vow beyond the ordinary, suggesting that their love and their art participate in something eternal.

At its core, the poem rejects conventional measures of success or morality—“judgment,” “heaven,” and “hell”—in favor of a life guided by beauty, imagination, and mutual devotion. It celebrates a chosen community of kindred spirits: those who remain faithful to inspiration and refuse to become spiritually “dead.”

The poem’s tone is both lyrical and resolute, blending tenderness with quiet defiance.

⸻

About the Poet

“Michael Field” was not a single person, but the shared pseudonym of two women: Katharine Bradley and Edith Cooper, who were aunt and niece as well as life partners.

Writing together under a male pseudonym allowed them greater freedom in the literary world of Victorian England, where women writers—especially those exploring intense emotional and romantic themes—often faced limitations and scrutiny.

Their relationship was central to their work. Many of their poems, including this one, can be read as expressions of their shared life, their devotion to one another, and their commitment to art. In this sense, their writing is both deeply personal and quietly radical.

Today, Michael Field is increasingly recognized not only for literary merit but also for the significance of Bradley and Cooper’s partnership—a creative and romantic union that challenged the norms of their time while leaving behind a body of work marked by beauty, intellect, and emotional depth.

Honeycrisp
by January Gill O’Neil

My boyfriend will eat
an entire apple in one sitting.
Peel, pulp, core. Hands me
the stem when he’s done.
Seeds in his gut. The calyx
a dank star. An orchard grows
inside him. The tongue
that slicks the skin. Hands
perfumed with bruised sugar.
His kisses a tender lament.
The heart that glows. How he takes
everything the fruit offers
and leaves nothing
but the stem. I let my body
follow. Set my jaw soft.
Rapt, greedy, this devotion.
Tough armor. Red glow. Yellow
flesh. Every bite a fall
from grace.

🍎 🍎 🍎

About the Poem

January Gill O’Neil describes this poem as an exploration of appetite—of “devouring everything in sight”—and that idea pulses through every line. The apple is more than fruit; it becomes a symbol of desire, of intimacy, of giving oneself over completely. The act of eating is transformed into something almost sacred, almost dangerous.

There is something deeply sensual about the language: “tongue / that slicks the skin,” “hands / perfumed with bruised sugar,” “kisses a tender lament.” None of it is explicit, and yet it is undeniably intimate. The physical act of consumption mirrors emotional and romantic vulnerability. To love, the poem suggests, is to consume and be consumed—to take in everything another person offers, even knowing that such devotion leaves one exposed.

The final line—“Every bite a fall / from grace”—invokes the biblical image of the apple as forbidden fruit. Love, desire, and surrender become acts of both joy and risk. There is sweetness here, but also the awareness that to give yourself entirely to someone is to step beyond safety, beyond restraint.

I was struck most by O’Neil’s idea of “giving yourself over entirely to something—or someone—you just can’t get enough of.” There’s something beautiful and a little frightening in that kind of devotion.

While I don’t have a boyfriend, I recognize that instinct in myself. It’s the way I am with friends, with the people I care about. When I love—whether romantically or platonically—I tend to give fully, sometimes more than I probably should. I was raised to be kind, to be generous, to be present for others, and that often means offering my time, my attention, and my heart without holding much back.

There’s a vulnerability in that. Sometimes people appreciate it. Sometimes they take advantage. But I’m not sure I would want to love any other way. There is something honest—almost sacred—about giving freely, about not rationing care or affection.

Like the poem, that kind of love can feel like a kind of falling—unguarded, wholehearted, a little reckless. But it is also where the sweetness is.

🍎 🍎 🍎

About the Poet

January Gill O’Neil is an American poet known for her vivid imagery, emotional clarity, and exploration of identity, love, and everyday experience. Her work often blends the sensual with the reflective, grounding abstract emotions in tangible, physical details.

In “Honeycrisp,” O’Neil captures something both universal and deeply personal: the hunger for connection and the willingness to surrender to it. Her language invites the reader not just to observe, but to feel—to taste the sweetness, to sense the risk, and to recognize the quiet power of devotion.

Requiescat

by Oscar Wilde

Tread lightly, she is near
Under the snow,
Speak gently, she can hear
The daisies grow.

All her bright golden hair
Tarnished with rust,
She that was young and fair
Fallen to dust.

Lily-like, white as snow,
She hardly knew
She was a woman, so
Sweetly she grew.

Coffin-board, heavy stone,
Lie on her breast,
I vex my heart alone,
She is at rest.

⸻

About the Poem

On the surface, Requiescat is a quiet elegy. The title itself is Latin, meaning “may she rest,” from the familiar phrase requiescat in pace—“rest in peace.” The poem speaks softly, almost reverently, as the speaker mourns someone young who has died. The repeated instruction to “tread lightly” and “speak gently” creates a sense of hushed grief, as if the poet fears disturbing the peace of the dead.

What makes the poem so striking is its restraint. Rather than dramatic declarations of sorrow, Wilde offers images: snow, daisies, golden hair turned to rust, the weight of the coffin-board and stone. The poem moves quietly from life to death, from youth and beauty to the stillness of the grave. The final line—“I vex my heart alone, / She is at rest”—captures the loneliness of grief. The dead have found peace; the living must carry the sorrow.

Although the poem appears to mourn a woman, many readers today feel something deeper and more complicated beneath its surface. Wilde often wrote about beauty, youth, and loss with a sensitivity that resonates strongly with queer experience—especially the sense of loving deeply in a world that did not always allow such love to be openly expressed. The line “I vex my heart alone” feels almost like a confession of private grief, the kind of emotion that must remain hidden.

Whether Wilde intended the poem to carry such layers or not, it reflects something universal: the quiet sorrow of loving someone whose presence is now gone. It is a reminder that grief is often most powerful when it is whispered rather than shouted.

⸻

About the Poet

Oscar Wilde was born in 1854 in Dublin, making him one of Ireland’s most celebrated literary figures. His mother, Jane Wilde, was herself a poet and Irish nationalist, and the young Wilde grew up surrounded by literature, politics, and intellectual debate. He later studied at Trinity College Dublin and Oxford before rising to fame in London as a playwright, novelist, and poet.

Today Wilde is remembered not only for his brilliant wit and works such as The Importance of Being Earnest and The Picture of Dorian Gray, but also as one of the most famous queer figures in literary history. In 1895 he was prosecuted and imprisoned for what Victorian England called “gross indecency,” a charge stemming from his relationships with men. The trial and imprisonment destroyed his career and ultimately shortened his life, but they also transformed him into a lasting symbol of both artistic brilliance and the injustice faced by queer people in the past.

As we celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day, Wilde stands as one of Ireland’s most distinctive voices—an Irishman whose sharp intellect, aesthetic sensibility, and emotional depth helped shape modern literature. His life reminds us that Ireland’s cultural legacy includes not only great writers but also queer voices whose stories were once silenced.

Reading Wilde today, especially poems like “Requiescat,” allows us to hear that voice again—soft, lyrical, and deeply human. In its quiet meditation on love and loss, the poem offers something timeless: a reminder that beauty, grief, and memory are part of what connects us all.

Notes For Further Study
By Christopher Salerno

You are a nobody
until another man leaves
a note under your wiper:
I like your hair, clothes, car—call me!
Late May, I brush pink
Crepe Myrtle blossoms
from the hood of my car.
Again spring factors
into our fever. Would this
affair leave any room for error?
What if I only want
him to hum me a lullaby.
To rest in the nets
of our own preferences.
I think of women
I’ve loved who, near the end,
made love to me solely
for the endorphins. Praise
be to those bodies lit
with magic. I pulse
my wipers, sweep away pollen
from the windshield glass
to allow the radar
detector to detect. In the prim
light of spring I drive
home alone along the river’s
tight curves where it bends
like handwritten words.
On the radio, a foreign love
song some men sing to rise.

Sometimes the smallest gesture can feel like a revelation.

In Salerno’s poem, that revelation is almost absurdly simple: a note left under a windshield wiper. Yet the moment carries the weight of recognition. The speaker says, “You are a nobody / until another man leaves / a note under your wiper.” That line captures something deeply human—our desire to be seen, desired, noticed.

For queer people especially, that kind of recognition has often come in coded or fleeting ways: a glance, a quiet comment, a scribbled note. The poem captures the nervous excitement that comes with possibility. Is it an invitation? A mistake? A beginning?

The only notes I’ve ever received under my windshield wipers have been someone complaining that I parked too close to their car or a parking ticket. I can’t say anyone has ever left me a flirtatious note like the one in the poem. Still, the idea of such a moment—something unexpected and slightly daring—has a certain charm to it.

Spring surrounds the poem—blossoms, pollen, warmth, fever. The season becomes a metaphor for awakening desire. But the poem is not simply about lust. The speaker wonders whether he wants something softer, even tender: someone to “hum me a lullaby.” That line shifts the emotional tone from flirtation to longing.

By the end, the speaker is driving alone along a winding river, the curves “like handwritten words.” The note might promise connection, but the poem ends in contemplation rather than fulfillment. Sometimes desire is less about what happens and more about the moment when possibility first appears.

About the Poem

“Notes For Further Study” is a poem about recognition, longing, and the fragile beginnings of attraction. The opening lines immediately establish the emotional stakes: identity and worth seem suddenly validated by another man’s attention.

Salerno uses ordinary details—pollen on a windshield, a radar detector, crepe myrtle blossoms—to ground the poem in the mundane world of everyday life. Yet these details carry symbolic weight. The speaker repeatedly wipes away pollen from the glass, suggesting a desire to see clearly or remove the haze of uncertainty surrounding this new encounter.

Spring imagery runs throughout the poem. The season represents both fertility and restlessness. The phrase “our fever” evokes both romantic excitement and the irrational rush that accompanies attraction.

The poem also reflects on the speaker’s past relationships with women. Rather than condemning those experiences, the poem acknowledges them with a curious gratitude: “Praise / be to those bodies lit / with magic.” This moment suggests a complex emotional history rather than a simple narrative of discovery.

Formally, the poem moves in short, flowing lines that mirror the motion of driving along a winding road. The final image—the river bending “like handwritten words”—suggests that desire itself is a kind of message, something written in curves rather than straight lines.

About the Poet

Christopher Salerno (born 1975) is an American poet, editor, and professor of creative writing. He was born in Somerville, New Jersey, and earned an MA from East Carolina University and an MFA from Bennington College. 

Salerno is the author of several poetry collections, including Whirligig (2006), Minimum Heroic (2010), ATM (2014), Sun & Urn (2017), Deathbed Sext (2020), and The Man Grave (2021). His work has received numerous honors, including the Georgetown Review Poetry Prize and the Georgia Poetry Prize. 

His poetry frequently explores masculinity, memory, grief, and the complexities of desire. Through vivid imagery and reflective narrative, Salerno often examines how everyday experiences—driving, listening to music, or brushing pollen from a windshield—can suddenly reveal deeper emotional truths.

In addition to his writing, Salerno teaches at William Paterson University in New Jersey and has served as an editor with Saturnalia Books, supporting the work of contemporary poets and helping bring new voices into the literary world.  

Window Art
By Kwame Dawes

for Kojo

There is the fickle shadow, the dialect
of my body; me standing before myself—
as if the framing of this ordinary mirror,
is the small light of a window,
and see this naked man, no longer shy,
move me with the muscle
of thighs and the flattery of shoulders—
this is a kind of art; perhaps
the only art there is, my body
still able to seduce me to tenderness.

My calculus of pleasure or contentment
is the way my older self,
that brother of mine who faced
the wars, four years ahead,
the blasted sight, the kidneys’
decay, the atrophy of bone in his
spine. To think I found comfort
in the slow calculation. He was
broken long before, and I have survived
another curse. This is as ugly
as all love can be. And, so, I give
thanks for this body walking
towards the trees, away from me
the machine of me, my backside
a revelation.

About the Poem

Some poems don’t ask us to escape into beauty—they ask us to pause and recognize it in ourselves, exactly as we are. Kwame Dawes’s “Window Art” is one of those poems. It begins with something simple: a man standing before a mirror, seeing his own body not with criticism, but with a kind of quiet tenderness. Yet, as the poem unfolds, that moment of self-recognition becomes something deeper. It becomes a meditation on loss, on the memory of a brother who has gone before him, and on the fragile gift of still being here. There is grief in this poem, certainly—but there is also gratitude. It reminds us that to be alive, in a body that still moves and feels, is itself a kind of art.

What struck me most about this poem is how it begins in something so ordinary—a glance in the mirror—and transforms that moment into something almost sacred. Too often, we are our own harshest critics. We look at our bodies and see flaws, age, or what we wish were different. But Dawes invites us to see something else: tenderness.

That tenderness becomes even more meaningful when placed beside loss. The speaker measures his own life against the suffering of his brother, who has already endured illness and death. Survival, then, is not simply a blessing—it is complicated. It carries grief, memory, and even a kind of quiet guilt.

And yet, the poem does not end in sorrow. It ends in gratitude.

There is something profoundly moving in the idea that our bodies—imperfect, aging, and temporary—are still worthy of appreciation. They carry us forward, even as we know they will not last forever. In that awareness, there is both a sobering truth and a strange comfort: we are all walking the same path, just at different moments along the way.

“Window Art” is a meditation on the body, mortality, and mourning. The poem begins with the speaker observing himself in a mirror, which he transforms into a “window”—a powerful image suggesting both reflection and passage. The body becomes a work of art, not because it is perfect, but because it is alive and capable of feeling.

The poem then shifts to the speaker’s brother, who functions as both a real person and a symbolic “older self.” Having suffered illness and death, the brother represents the future that awaits the speaker. This creates a poignant tension: the speaker’s present vitality is measured against his brother’s decline.

Dawes does not romanticize this suffering. The physical details—“kidneys’ decay,” “atrophy of bone”—are stark and unflinching. Love, in this context, is described as “ugly,” not because it is cruel, but because it is inseparable from pain and loss.

In the final lines, the speaker imagines his body moving away from him, “towards the trees,” suggesting both nature and death. Yet even here, there is gratitude. The body, though temporary, remains a source of wonder. The poem ultimately suggests that to live with awareness of mortality is not to despair, but to deepen one’s appreciation for the present.

About the Poet

Kwame Dawes (b. 1962) is a Ghanaian-born poet, novelist, and editor, widely regarded as one of the most important contemporary voices in Caribbean and African diasporic literature. Raised in Jamaica, Dawes’s work often explores themes of identity, migration, spirituality, illness, and memory.

He is the author of numerous collections of poetry and has received many honors for his work, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and an Emmy Award for his multimedia project Hope: Living and Loving with HIV in Jamaica. Dawes is also a passionate advocate for the arts and has played a significant role in promoting Caribbean literature globally.

Much of his poetry is deeply personal, often drawing on lived experience to explore universal themes such as love, grief, and the human body. In “Window Art,” Dawes reflects on the loss of his brother, offering a meditation that is both intimate and expansive—grounded in mourning, yet reaching toward gratitude.

Night Was Done
By Mikhail Kuzmin

Night was done. We rose and after 
Washing, dressing,—kissed with laughter,—
After all, the sweet night knows. 
Lilac breakfast cups were clinking 
While we sat like brothers drinking 
Tea,—and kept our dominoes.
And our dominoes smiled greeting, 
And our eyes avoided meeting 
With our dumb lips’ secrecy.
“Faust” we sang, we played, denying
Night’s strange memories, strangely dying,
As though night’s twain were not we.

There is something exquisitely tender—and quietly defiant—about this small poem. It feels almost domestic, almost harmless. And yet, in its historical context, it is anything but.

In “Night Was Done,” Mikhail Kuzmin captures a morning after—a moment of intimacy between two men—rendered not with tragedy or shame, but with softness, playfulness, and quiet conspiracy.

The night has passed.
“They rose.”
They wash, dress—and kiss with laughter.

There is no guilt in the kiss. Only warmth.

But the world still exists outside the room.

The poem turns on that delicate tension between what is shared privately and what must be disguised publicly. The men sit “like brothers drinking / Tea.” The phrasing is deliberate. They perform normalcy. They cloak eros in fraternity. In a society where same-sex love could not be openly acknowledged, “like brothers” becomes a mask.

And yet the mask does not fully convince.

“Our dominoes smiled greeting.” Dominoes are a game, yes—but they are also a metaphor. Masks. Faces placed in order. Pieces aligned to create patterns. The game becomes a ritual of denial, something to fill the space where touch had been.

“And our eyes avoided meeting / With our dumb lips’ secrecy.”

That line is devastating. The lips are “dumb”—not because they lack speech, but because they must remain silent. The eyes avoid one another not from lack of feeling, but because looking would reignite memory. Looking would make the night real again.

They sing “Faust,” they play, they deny.

“As though night’s twain were not we.”

Twain—two. The night made them two-in-one. Morning separates them back into individual men, back into roles, back into something socially legible. But the poem refuses to let us forget: they were the night. They are the twain.

This is what makes the poem profoundly LGBTQ+. It is not flamboyant or declarative. It is intimate, coded, domestic. It understands the choreography of queer survival: laughter, breakfast cups, games, avoidance, denial. It shows how love must sometimes be folded into ordinary gestures to remain safe.

And yet the poem does not feel ashamed. It feels wistful. Tender. Almost smiling.

The sweet night knows.

About the Poem

“Night Was Done” was written during Russia’s Silver Age, a period of artistic experimentation and aesthetic refinement in the early 20th century. While much queer literature of the time leaned toward tragedy, pathology, or moral warning, Kuzmin’s poem offers something radically different: normalization.

There is no punishment in the poem. No fall. No moral reckoning. Instead, we see lovers sharing tea.

The poem’s power lies in its subtlety. The queerness is unmistakable—two men rising together after a night, kissing, performing brotherhood in daylight—but it is never sensationalized. This quietness is itself political. It asserts that same-sex intimacy can be ordinary, playful, and woven into daily life.

In this way, the poem anticipates later LGBTQ+ literature that focuses not just on suffering, but on tenderness and domestic intimacy.

It is a morning-after poem—but also a poem about survival. About how queer love lives in glances, in laughter, in games, in what is not said.

About the Poet

Mikhail Kuzmin (1872–1936) was one of the first major Russian writers to write openly and positively about homosexuality. A central figure of the Russian Silver Age, he was a poet, novelist, composer, and cultural tastemaker in St. Petersburg’s artistic circles.

In 1906, he published the groundbreaking novel Wings, which portrays a young man’s awakening to same-sex love without condemning it. This was extraordinary for its time. Kuzmin himself lived relatively openly within artistic communities and had long-term relationships with men.

After the Bolshevik Revolution, attitudes toward homosexuality hardened, and under Stalin it was recriminalized. Kuzmin’s later years were marked by marginalization, but his legacy endures as a pioneering queer voice in Russian literature.

What makes Kuzmin so important for LGBTQ+ readers today is not simply that he was gay—but that he wrote love without apology. He gave us mornings after. He gave us tea cups and laughter. He gave us the twain.

And in doing so, he reminds us that queer love has always existed—not only in rebellion, but in tenderness.