SAY THE WORD, BLISS

when the gaudy sun routs

the curtains

& velvet

is

drawn back from window after window

to let the morning in

& night has yet to be imagined

 

This is from Jesse Lee Kercheval’s latest poetry collection, I Want to Tell You. In it, Jesse Lee wrestles with grief, loss, god, and the universe. She joins us on A Public Affair to read from the book and share her poem writing process.

Jesse Lee Kercheval is a poet, writer, and translator, specializing in Uruguayan poetry. She is the author of America that island off the coast of France and Dog Angel and the translator of Love Poems by Idea Vilariño and The Invisible Bridge: Selected Poems of Circe Maia. A bilingual Spanish-English edition of her selected poems, La crisis es el cuerpo, translated by Ezequiel Zaidenwerg, was published in Argentina and is forthcoming in Mexico. She is also the author of the Alex Award–winning memoir Space and the short story collection Underground Women.

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