PHILIP SCHAEFER
Philip Schaefer’s collection Bad Summon (University of Utah Press, 2017) won the Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize, while individual poems have won contests from The Puritan, Meridian, & Passages North. His work has been featured on Poem-A-Day, Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and in The Poetry Society of America. He runs a modern Mexican restaurant called The Camino in Missoula, MT.
The first time I smelled you felt like deleting the weather
channel app & walking shirtless into the rain & laying down
in the tall grass until I was the tall grass.
I want to reach a truth that skips the more logical responses of our minds. Cohen was on the nose. And in poetry we have a rare luxury: we are probably the most underappreciated and least comprehended art genre out there, so middle birds up. Talk to some blue god’s dachshund while huffing battery glue. Sneak into a resting hot air balloon. Tell your unborn daughter you want to throw a mattress on her. Mean it (but also don’t).
April 21, 2024