Fiction, Poetry

Poems on Violence

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Tom Nolan quotes Philip Dacey on his poetic depiction of a poisoned Russian agent poisoned in “With or Without Milk”: “I drank a tea not made in front of me. / Beware tea brewed in ways you cannot see.”

“The poetry of violent death,” he says, “spans hundreds of years.” (via Books, Inq.)

One thought on “Poems on Violence”

  1. Here’s one of my favorites, a loose sonnet by T.R. Hummer entitled “The Rural Carrier Stops to Kill a Nine-Foot Cottonmouth”:

    Lord God, I saw the son of a b—h uncoil

    In the road ahead of me, uncoil and squirm

    For the Ditch, squirm a h–l of a long time.

    Missed him with the car. When I got back to him, he was all

    But gone, nothing left on the road, but the tip end

    Of his tail, and that disappearing into Johnson grass.

    I leaned over the ditch and saw him, balled up now, hiss

    I aimed for the mouth and shot him. And shot him again.

    Then I got a good strong stick and dragged him out.

    He was long and evil, thick as the top of my arm.

    There are things in this world a man can’t look at without

    Wanting to kill. Don’t ask me why. I was calm

    Enough, I thought. But I felt my spine

    Squirm, suddenly. I admit it. It was mine.

    Best poem on human depravity that I’ve ever read.

    Reply

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