Sylvie Baumgartel

Biography

Sylvie Baumgartel has published two books of poetry: Song of Songs (FSG, 2019) and Pink (FSG, 2021). Her poems have appeared in the New Yorker, the Paris Review, the Financial Times, Harvard Review, Subtropics, the Nation, and elsewhere. 

See Work

POETRY / Fall 2022

Mixed Messages

By Sylvie Baumgartel

Cézanne doesn’t paint what he sees.
His apples are orange.

POETRY / Fall 2022

Love

By Sylvie Baumgartel

I can take even more 
Than he can give.

POETRY / Fall 2022

Boys & Girls

By Sylvie Baumgartel

Sometimes when I get
My period,
I wake up & my bed 
Is a massacre.

POETRY / Fall 2022

Desire

By Sylvie Baumgartel

True domination means 
That all of the desires & impulses 
Come from the submissive;

POETRY / Fall 2022

In Rome

By Sylvie Baumgartel

I pull down my black dress 
& feed my child. 

POETRY / Spring 2020

Mothers

By Sylvie Baumgartel

Women used to wean their babies
By painting their breasts black.
Hurricane clouds are black.
The Earth is weaning us.

POETRY / Spring 2020

Pink

By Sylvie Baumgartel

Pink is the Tuscan sunset. Pink
Are the Vietnamese monk pates
Bobbing under Piero’s True Cross.
Pink is plenty, pink is joy.