VQR Online

When I hear that boy sing, I said, every other
Boy becomes a disappointment. Tiny wince

You flared across Boston
like a meteor, blond mane and lowered brow
in every coffeehouse off the Charles.

So much of what forms us is accidental, ephemeral-​seeming. When I was young I knew I wanted to be an artist. Sometimes I wanted to be a writer, too, and make books; sometimes I wanted to be a singer. 

The town, my dear, is closing down: dead-
Bolts slipping into their sleeves, cicadas insisting

These arms, after all,
are open for no one
else. Posture of air

love the summer issues of commercial magazines with their exotic vacation escapes. Notwithstanding the crass product placement of beachwear, they are welcoming at a time of the year when we need to recharge. Certainly, the VQR staff wants...

Come work with me awhile, Hayden,
I can use your company in the shed 
among tools your hands have never lost

Apollinaire experimented with audacious techniques for generating verse. On occasion he would sit in a café and weave overheard phrases into the composition. Read David Lehman’s translation of “Zone,” the central poem in Apollinaire’s...