Our Response to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Outbreak

As a precaution to help limit the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19) and care for our community, Just Buffalo Literary Center has postponed a number of events, and we will follow the guidance of Buffalo Public Schools in terms of Just Buffalo Writing Center programming.

Learn More

i was told that every poem was about the MOON (Three excerpts) by Ann Pedone

(1)

There is a language no one ever spoke. It has been recorded that

its words tasted of myrrh-bud and yellow

pear. Prepositions

were still covered with

moon dust. Nouns were held

together with verbs not unlike

petals to a stem. Vowels

swam in the veins of trees

thick

of sap

heavy

and

sweet.

It is said that a man who lived during the time

of Plato,

swallowed

this language

whole. He said it was easy to eat

as it

had consisted

of just one word: “bird.”

(2)

A friend of mine had just come back from Greece.

We were walking down Lexington

Avenue and he told me that the light

in New York is very

different

from the light in Athens.

When I asked him how that could be, he

laughed and said, “You’re a poet. You should

understand it better

than I do.”

(3)

It could almost bemusic this excess of heat

and yes spring is gathering (a promise)

the moisture of my body up into the clouds

could this be what makes the plum tree blossom

About the Poet

Ann Pedone

Ann Pedone is a poet and translator from the San Francisco Bay Area. She is the author of The Medea Notebooks (Etruscan Press, 2023), and The Italian Professor’s Wife, winner of the 2022 Press 53 Award for Poetry, as well as the chapbooks The Bird Happened; perhaps there is a sky we don’t know: a re-imagining of sappho; Everywhere You Put Your Mouth; Sea [break]; and DREAM/WORK.

Her poetry, non-fiction, and reviews have recently appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Posit, Texas Review, ANMLY, and The American Journal of Poetry. She was a finalist for the 2024 Levi’s Prize. Ann is the founder and editor-in-chief of the journal and small press, αntiphony.

Related Event

  • Ann Pedone will join the Buffalo-based artist Chango, poet Diego Espíritu, and host Thom Eichelberger-Young in LIMITED PALATTE 02, a Blue Bag Press sponsored evening of readings and performances from 6:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Saturday, February 1st at THE TEMP at 777 Main St. in Buffalo. Admission is free and open to the public.

The Poem of the Week feature is curated by literary legacy awardee R.D. Pohl.