Len Roberts‘s two most recent books of poetry, The Trouble-Making Finch (1998) and Counting the Black Angels (1994), were published by the University of Illinois Press. His book of translation, Selected Poems of Sándor Csoóri, was published by Copper Canyon in 1992.
Poetry
Summer 2000
Flicking the Switch
For J. M. After twelve manhattans we thought he’d just pass out, but instead found him flipping the lawn lights in a pattern only he understood, sending messages to the […]
Poetry
Winter 2000
Morning Awakening
From the Hungarian. Good morning,—I greet you when you open the doorand with my greeting the smellof elderberry and of thyme and of a hundred herbpours into your room.Look, the […]
Poetry
Summer 1996
If I Had Believed
From the Hungarian. If I had believed the whispers, the winds, the prophecies raised in a cradle, this night would not be so long, this wall would not be rotting […]
Poetry
Summer 1996
Remembering an Old Street
Curved little street: tossed out melon rind. Your cobblestones: black seeds, flies swarm all over you. Your synagogue’s forehead: a stuffed calf s forehead. Your little Jews’ earlocks are curly, […]
Poetry
Summer 1996
Hung Over
From the Hungarian. Always hung over with worry, with the green fur of postponed rage in my mouth, hung over from myself and from you, with crevices under […]
Poetry
Winter 1992
Somebody Consoles Me with a Poem
From the Hungarian. Can you hear it? Somebody’s reading a poem to me over the telephone, he’s consoling me for my dead, for myself, he’s promising a snowfall on my […]