Kimiko Hahn’s tenth collection of poetry Foreign Bodies will be out in 2020. She teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing and Literary Translation, Queens College, City University of New York.
Poetry
Nov/Dec 2020
The Earth’s Day
Grain and water keep us alive — like plants, we drink the sunlight — then, too, ballad and lullaby. With animals, really, coincident. Plants sip up the sunlight. The clouds drink from […]
Poetry
Nov/Dec 2020
On Viscera
A broken sestina A chance look out the window, into a squall of white feathers — what kid shakes a pillow in our alley? I rise for a real look into […]
Poetry
Nov/Dec 2020
Seeing to Etiquette
The crabgrass and dandelions on the unmown lawn attract flocks of blackbirds and grackles and they look like a neighborhood party, walking in a line, arm’s-length apart, seeking evidence except, […]
Nonfiction
July/Aug 2018
The Journal of My Psychidae
after Shiki Masaoka’s Verse Record August 17 This morning, H calculated that he’ll be dead within six months. Sitting in the shade, he noticed a juniper branch bobbing and drew […]
Nature's Nature
May/June 2016
III
Unlike male fireflies who do not need to burn many extra calories to make flashes because only a tiny bit of energy is needed I do burn a lot […]
Nature's Nature
May/June 2016
Brilliance, a Valentine
Like fireflies what I cook up can present an unpleasant meal although what I produce admittedly does not glow although I wish I could produce glowy larvae-like things— sestina, sukiyaki, […]
Nature's Nature
May/June 2016
II
Like female fireflies I am remarkably picky when checking out flashy males because long-lasting pulses mean a lot when it comes to say nuptial gifts —packages of protein injected with […]
Nature's Nature
May/June 2016
VII
I never sat around my backyard the night before heading off to Belize to study coral reefs unlike Professor Sara Lewis and I would not have compared firefly sexual […]
Nature's Nature
May/June 2016
IV
What can I say? The cannibal Photuris firefly that pounces bites then sucks the blood of the speciel other for ill-tasting chemicals which it uses to protect itself […]
Nature's Nature
May/June 2016
V
The predator Photuris firefly sometimes stages aerial assaults, picking out other species by their flashes and swooping down to attack and other times sits on a blade of grass, responding […]
Nature's Nature
May/June 2016
VI
Like Professor Sara Lewis I view the meadow as a stage for passion and yearning courtship duets and competitions for affection cruel deception and gruesome death Like the Professor fluent […]
Poetry
Winter 2014
Circling a Nest
“The shapes of body parts are assumed to have some relation to their purpose” including the human egg—though bird eggs are not round (as in a child’s drawing) which biologists […]
Poetry
Spring 2002
Like Lavrinia
Like Lavrinia Merli, in 1890 in Mojola, Mantua, expired from hysteria and placed in a vault on Thursday, July 3rd, where she regained consciousness, tore at the graves clothes her […]
Poetry
Spring 2002
Figures
More apparent than a Hindoo goddess Blanche Dumas's body sprouted surplus leg, breasts, and genitalia though everyone really possesses supernumerary parts attempting synecdoche. Blanche could practice coitus in both openings, […]
Poetry
Spring 2000
Vivisection
Torso slit neatly as an envelope, the flesh folded back in awe of the love letter I read when I read the disgendered organs with fingers, with lips. I know […]
Poetry
Summer/ Autumn 1997
Mosquito and Ant: Initial Correspondence to L
I. The Immortal Sisters One has only daughters. One has a husband and lover. One has two ex-husbands. One has a rock band. One doesn't give a shit. One has […]
May/June 2019
Trigger Happy
Writing prompts just in time for summer In the throes of bringing up spirited daughters, working, and struggling for time and energy to write, my then-husband remarked, “Funny how the […]
Winter 2014
Circles and Breasts
“A fertility signal, a youth signal, a health signal, a wealth symbol.” A gland and a store of fat.
Kimiko Hahn
Kimiko Hahn’s latest book, Brain Fever, is prompted by rarified fields of science. She is working on a new collection of zuihitsu, of which this fictionalized journal is a part. […]
Kimiko Hahn
Kimiko Hahn is the author of nine collections of poetry, most recently Toxic Flora: Poems, and her honors include the 2008 PEN/Voelcker Award. She teaches in the MFA Program in […]