Note to the Reader
Copper Canyon Press encourages you to calibrate your settings by using the line of characters below, which optimizes the line length and character size:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.
Please take the time to adjust the size of the text on your viewer so that the line of characters above appears on one line, if possible.
When this text appears on one line on your device, the resulting settings will most accurately reproduce the layout of the text on the page and the line length intended by the author. Viewing the title at a higher than optimal text size or on a device too small to accommodate the lines in the text will cause the reading experience to be altered considerably; single lines of some poems will be displayed as multiple lines of text. If this occurs, the turn of the line will be marked with a shallow indent.
Thank you. We hope you enjoy these poems.
This e-book edition was created through a special grant provided by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. Copper Canyon Press would like to thank Constellation Digital Services for their partnership in making this e-book possible.
For Kate Carr
In 1799 the Spanish painter Francisco Goya created an etching called El sueño de la razón produce monstruos. The title has two English translations. The common one is The sleep of reason produces monsters. But it can also be translated The dream of reason produces monsters.
Contents
1 I Threshold Gods Rehearsal Everything Is Restored Death of a Child The Gesture of Turning a Mask Around Troubles Spring Encyclopedia of the Dead
2 II The Sleeping Pig The Traveling Line The Belt Notes on Pigs Obstacles to Handling Ears The Farrowing Crate Portrait of a Pig as a Bird One-Way Gate The Veld Influence Vision First Day of Lent The River Vaudeville Westward Expansion
3 III New World The Cave Sword-Swallower The Drowning Winter Variations Reprieve The Dream of Reason Self-Portrait The Miniature Bed Harvest Sonnet for Lost Teeth Talisman On Waking Eros A Childhood Revelation Spring Mnemonic Intelligence Easter Notes
Origins of Violence
There is a hole.
In the hole is everything
people will do
to each other.
The hole goes down and down.
It has many rooms
like graves and like graves
they are all connected.
Roots hang from the dirt
in craggy