reading: poet Kim Addonizio

I read a lot of books and thought I could start sharing more of what I'm reading on a daily basis. Yesterday Kim Addonizio's poetry collection Lucifer at the Starlite arrived in my mailbox. The first poem in the book:

Sign your name

on a scrap of paper,
crumple or tear it up and throw it away:

that's how the world works, friend.
Maybe you can't even get as far

as gripping a pen, maybe your hand
is scrabbling in a few dirty grains

of rice, or you're licking a tin plate
or just your fly-crawled lips. Welcome

and farewell: your stacked or stashed
or set aflame, turning on the spit,

the axis, the long pole that runs
through everyone. If you're here

you're already nearly gone. Write
if you can. If you can, give us a song.


(read it on Google Books)