'Going through me / like winter bone' – My thoughts on James L. White's poetry

Please check out this piece from the Kenyon Review Online! In it I talk about how James L. White influenced me and the poems in my first book. (Thanks, Zach!)

Here's a moment to entice you to read the rest:

White's writing not only gave me a kind of permission, it gave me one model of how to talk about desire (and sex even), both in a visceral way but also engaging deeper levels of associative power. For example, in one poem he dreams of a lover "going through me like winter bone." Here's that moment.

Some farm kid presses against my leg.

I look at the long backs of men in the field

and doze to dream you're going through me

like winter bone, your logs of arms pushing

me down into some stifling contract with flesh

until I break free for air.

For those of you with blogs, would love some link-love! And of course I love to do this sort of thing. Let's team up!