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[schema geometrica] [W/DATA STORAGE IN IT & A RAIN STICK]

by dennis hinrichsen

 

                                     “This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere.”

                                                                    John Donne, “The Sun Rising”

 

 

 

                                                    —I download a photograph of the sun &

 

offer penance—which is a lump of coal—I cannot keep it in the Cloud

if I do otherwise // —O busy old fool unruly sun // core like a deity

eating all the hydrogen in the room // we eat here as well w/each recharging—

we have to keep the data alive—getting fucked (I think) before we are fracked // either way I will be your new silent lonesome some day // dead but still

a killing nevertheless // not even my wife knows all those coded tappings

I snap w/hacker prowess so she can begin the grand deleting—all that hot gas— poems & pix—my rags of time—going really nowhere as she weeps—just another ring in the non-abyss—storage—w/no Dante in it // no Virgil // —O Fusion

I thought it was you all along // I prayed to all the gods // I thought my blood a river perpetual // cellular data pulsing in my daughter like a rain stick

—not quite a replica of me but so lovely in its tipping I believed—dear Sun—

 

this mango-streaked twilight could be freely mine

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Dennis Hinrichsen is the winner of Grid Poetry Prize for 2020 for his collection This Is Where I Live I Have Nowhere Else To Go which will appear later in the fall. His most recent work is is [q / lear], a chapbook from Green Linden Press, and Skin Music, winner of the 2014 Michael Waters Poetry Prize from Southern Indiana Review Press. His previous books include Rip-tooth (2010 Tampa Poetry Prize), Kurosawa’s Dog (2008 FIELD Poetry Prize), and Detail from The Garden of Earthly Delights (1999 Akron Poetry Prize). His other awards include the 2015 Rachel Wetzsteon Chapbook Prize from Map Literary for Electrocution, A Partial History as well as the 2016 Third Coast Poetry Prize and a 2014 Best of the Net Award. From May 2017 - April 2019, he served as the first Poet Laureate of the Greater Lansing [MI] area.

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The American Poetry Journal (APJ) is back and online only for now! Theresa Senato Edwards has taken over the reins as of April 21, 2025. Unfortunately, Theresa did not get much info on past submissions, except that all submissions were responded to. She queried about the anthology, chapbook, full-length submissions, and any upcoming online issues; but the same response was given to her: that all submissions were responded to. Theresa was not able to obtain access to the old APJ Submittable account either. She requested access but was told that the APJ Submittable account was unavailable. Theresa was not a part of the mess that transpired from 2022 to 2024, approximately. And she is sorry that she doesn't have additional news about much of the past submissions as well as submission fees. She asked for financial statements but was not given any. For now the website has been updated with issue and review archives, and we will go from there. Theresa apologizes that she doesn't have more to share and hopes that all her literary citizenship and fine literary reputation over the years will help APJ move positively forward, despite all the disappointment. Theresa will try her best to regain APJ's transparency, passion, and commitment to poets and poetry.​

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