How to Laugh

by Miles Champion

“There really is an intelligence to these that creates a texture unlike any other; I can’t yet describe it but it has to do with variable motions and rhythms, time signatures almost, that strike me as always alert, always attentive, always capable.”—William Fuller

“These poems are all inviting, and it seems to me that’s an amazingly rare quality in poems, and even this old Brit submits to the pleasure they give. . . . There’s radiance from all these poems.”—John Wilkinson

“Miles Champion uses just the necessary words, and puts them in interesting places: definitely hard to film.”—Tom Raworth

"Walls"

Walls
give bound to a susceptible formalism

Spring
bends the show of things to a brain-like source

Signs of rust
abandon a whistle or paint chip

Problems
are prefigured like flowers

Roofs
frisk in the air

Bridges
flip an aesthetic switch

Leaves
transfigure maples and alders

Dust
comes into ear

Extremities
milling about

Miles Champion moved to New York City from London in 2002. His other books of poetry include Sore Models, Facture, Eventually, and Three Bell Zero.

Genres: Poetry

53 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2009