Atsuro Riley: “Heard-Hoard”

Atsuro Riley says he wrote “Heard-Hoard” with a kind of pacing he could feel in his body. Eleven years after his widely acclaimed poetry debut, readers are blessed his new book has arrived. Riley says that this time around he wanted to weigh the words more carefully, and use words with more weight. He speaks of narrative overlaps that allow a universe of ambiguities, multiplicity. The poem “Sunder” is read and discussed.

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Excerpt from Heard-Hoardby Atsuro Riley.

SHED

—But roughly but adequately it can shelter

In which she whomped

and tamped the earth to make a floor.

some type of sail? ) from linoleum-scrimp and plastic.

Could I be the flickering in her structure.

I’m coiled inside

this shape she wracked and made.