We are made
of star deaths,
yet, often don’t have the table manners
of crocodiles, a hundred of which will feed
on one hippopotamus, taking turns—
one eater at a time— while others
hold the floating prey
still in the water to share,
one after the other taking its turn:
bite then spin away to chew,
take hold again,
and wait another turn.
We’ve come from stars,
made of exploding stars,
and dream
of star wars to come.
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Daniela Gioseffi is winner of the John Ciardi
Award for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry, 2007, and an American
Book Award winning author of twelve books of poetry and prose.
Her first collection of poems, Eggs in the Lake (BOA Editions:
Rochester:NY, 1977) contained poems which won a New York State
Council for the Arts Grant Award in Poetry, and her latest,
Blood Autumn, Autunno di sangue, was published in bilingual
edition, English and Italian, (by VIA Folios/ Bordighera Press,
at the Calandra Inst.: City University of NY) 2007. She edited
and wrote essay introductions for her two groundbreaking anthologies
of world literature, On Prejudice; A Global Perspective, (Anthor/Doubleday,
1993) and Women on War: International Writings (The Feminist
Press; NY, 2003). Her verse was selected to be etched in marble
on a wall of PENN Station, NY, 2003, near that of Walt Whitman
and William Carlos Williams. Daniela's work has been widely
published in numerous anthologies from such presses as Oxford
U. Press, Viking, Harper Collins, and in magazines such as
The Paris Review, The Nation, Poetry East, Chelsea Literary
Review, Library Journal, and Prairie Schooner.
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