Kazim Ali and Fanny Howe

Photo Credit (left): Jesse Sutton-Hough

Location: Copley Formal Lounge.

This event will be moderated by Carolyn Forché.

Autobiography

–Kazim Ali

we didn’t really speak
my summer wants to answer

the architecture doesn’t matter
this is not my real life

when I am here I want to know
why do I believe what I was taught

a storm is on the way
close all the windows

begin at the earliest hour
is there a self

From The Fortieth Day (BOA Editions Ltd., 2008)

–Fanny Howe

I have never arrived
into a new life yet.

Have you?

Do you find the squeak
of boots on snow

excruciating?

Have you heard people
say, It wasn’t me,

when they accomplished
a great feat?

I have, often.
But rarely.

•

Possibility
is one of the elements.
It keeps things going.

The ferry
with its ratty engine
and exactitude at chugging
into blocks and chains.

Returning as ever
to mother’s house
under a salty rain.

Slave up, slave down.

From Poetry (December 2011)