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Mark Irwin
Biography of Mark Irwin
Mark Irwin is the author of six collections of poetry, two volumes of translation, and a recently completed book of essays on contemporary American poetry entitled “Monster.” His most recent book is American Urn: New & Selected Poems (1987–2011). He lives in Colorado.
Mark Irwin Poems
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My Father's Hats
Sunday mornings I would reach high into his dark closet while standing on a chair and tiptoeing reach higher, touching, sometimes fumbling -
Portraits
Mother came to visit today. We hadn't seen each other in years. Why didn't you call? I asked. Your windows are filthy, she said. I know, -
Poem Beginning with a Line by Milosz
"The most beautiful bodies are like transparent glass." They are bodies of the selfless or of those newly dead. What appears transparent is really flame burning so brightly it appears like glass. What -
Landscape with Horse Named Popcorn
The hummingbird hovers over bougainvillea, darting in and out of blossoms as the bride throws her corset among laughter and waving hands. Seeing you, glass in hand, sunlight -
Empire
He wore a little spiraled hat and wrote a song that everyone sang. He lived on the mountainside above a lake with a mythical beast he'd subdued.
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Empire
He wore a little spiraled hat and wrote a song
that everyone sang. He lived on the mountainside
above a lake with a mythical beast he'd subdued.
A train circled the village each hour, over and over,
as he leaned down over the clock of his world
where people were days becoming months and years.
In a park, from the hides of ten cows, he'd constructed
a giant ball that everyone touched until it became
a torn rag. He had no family, and because he worried
