Andrew Hudgins teaches at Ohio State University. His most recent book is American Rendering: New and Selected Poems. In June, Simon and Schuster will publish The Joker: A Memoir and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt will publish A Clown at Midnight.
Poetry
Winter 2013
Death Mask of Sargon
Over the sensual, condescending smile of the Great King, the abyss of his left eye, gouged out, is the left eye of the abyss, his truest eye. Court sculptors made, […]
Poetry
Winter 2013
Lord Byron’s Boots
From their display case, John Murray VI removed his obit said, Lord Byron's boots from time to time, and smeared hard black wax on dry two-hundred-year-old leather, working it into […]
Nonfiction
Spring 2011
Helen Keller Answers the Iron
Though I’d rather have been one of the boys who could smack a baseball solidly with a bat, my talent was telling jokes. I was fascinated in them as mechanisms—machines […]
Poetry
Spring 2010
Stalin’s Laughter
At the secret policeman’s feast, Pauker sagged, drunk, between two officers, as he aped Zinoviev, hiccupping hilariously and staggering over watery, risible feet as he was dragged to the firing […]
Poetry
Summer 2001
A Flag of Honeysuckle
From the brush pile I wrestled brittle limbs and shoved them in the chipper. As I worked down the six-month pile of sticks, a slender […]
Poetry
Summer 2001
They Must Be Poetry
A pigeon-colored dawn, and two generals march —are marched— between sandbags to a wooden post. Klimovsky notices the post is splintered. Soon […]
Poetry
Spring 1998
Hail
Begonias and impatiens: snapped. The hostas: shredded. Oak leaves crumpled on flat grass. Caladiums: stripped to red stems, two limp pink pennants dangling from crimped stems, and three birds hammered […]
Poetry
Spring 1998
The Lake’s Ancient Song
Come walk where no one walks. Come stroll across the lily pads, a green shortcut to where the green frog sings and water skimmers skate, as you will too, across […]
Poetry
Spring 1998
Poem
POEM When the weak lamb dies, the shepherd skins the body, stretches the skinned fleece like a little lamb suit over an abandoned lamb, the lamb’s front legs jammed through […]
Poetry
Summer 1991
Tree
I’d like to be a tree. My father clinkedhis fork down on his plate and stared at me.“Boy, sometimes you say the dumbest things.” You ought to know, I muttered, […]
Poetry
Summer 1991
Salt
As I dashed after sparrows, flingingsalt from the shaker, they hopped sidewaysand hardly noticed. My uncle shouted, “You’ve got to sprinkle it on their tails!” I stalked them back and […]
Poetry
Winter 1987
Elegy for My Father, Who Is Not Dead
Because I live a careful life, becauseI don’t skydive or drink too much,my father’s almost sure to diebefore I do, and then I’ll follow.But he is closer than I am […]
Poetry
Winter 1987
Cargo
Stones echoed on the inside walls. We shiedthem through the doors of three wrecked freightsthat lay, wrenched and abandoned, in the creek—the cargo gone, the milo, wheat, and cornunloaded, delivered […]
Poetry
Winter 1984
Consider
You have considered the lilies of the field, how they do nothing for their splendor and how they shine like moons upon their stalks, arrayed in the exacting glory of […]
Contemporary American Poetry
Summer 1982
Bolus
Out looking for the latest place the hen has found to hide her eggs, I see a bolus near the barn. An owl had coughed the gray ball up. Hungry, […]
Contemporary American Poetry
Summer 1982
One of Solomon’s Concubines, Dying, Exults in Her Virginity
They tell me it's a fever. So I'm right again. I burn and burn and then go cold. And in-between they balance off and I can think as clearly as […]
Andrew Hudgins
Andrew Hudgins is the author of seven books of poetry, most recently American Rendering: New and Selected Poems (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010) and Shut Up, You’re Fine: Instructive Poetry for […]