PQ Poem Archives - Page 4 of 4 - Pittsburgh Quarterly

When I Am Empty

When I am empty I think about you staring back at me in the pouring rain— the family picnic in the Upper Peninsula, my grape pop spilling down the sides of the table, an empty bottle, your lips turned into a smirk, your eyes glinting, you in that moment loving me. I’m empty on the …

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PQ Poem

Blending Image and Word

by Aaron Fischer

Ekphrasis first began as a rhetorical form used by the ancient Greeks. Defined by Webster’s as “a literary description of or commentary on a visual work of art,” it remains one of the oldest forms of artistic analysis, dating back to Homer’s description of Achilles’ blacksmith god-created shield in The Illiad. This form of writing …

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PQ Poem

Miraculous

by Brandon Fury

I found the miraculous in the dim lamp that hung above your head, swinging. I found the miraculous in the hospital lobby— a bag of candy hearts left by a child whose mother ached in a blue chair. The voices of sick and well mingled across the linoleum floor. I found the miraculous in the …

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PQ Poem

Homewood Cemetery

by Valerie Bacharach

My husband and I walk its paths at dusk in the lessening light when heat and humidity ease. There is much life among these graves— deer browse, wild turkeys run and flirt, groundhogs and chipmunks hide in shadows. Red-winged blackbirds flash across the pond, land on reeds that surround it. Water lilies bloom, a thick …

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PQ Poem

Walking

by Philip Terman

My first walk is also my first memory— On the purple carpet, in the living room Of that bungalow in the suburbs built For the soldiers who returned from the war. One parent directed me towards the other, Who waited with open arms, Both of them smiling, encouraging, My brothers on the stairway cheering. No, …

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PQ Poem

For James Wright

by John Stupp

You write about shyness the shyness of daylight along the Ohio River like a girl brushing her hair in a boarding house looking for privacy— in one of your poems morning arrives naked uncomfortable shivering in the valley offering only a glimpse of herself to ironworkers electricians millwrights carpenters for the first time like a …

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PQ Poem

Avalon Creek

by Tess Barry

Slung over one sturdy branch hung low but high enough Swing that rode June skies for months that flung us up and out Above cool awnings shaded trees swing that bent the back of oaks Thick rope wound tight knotted twine stolen from Clarence Weingartner’s barn Strung by brothers sworn enemies awful boys Frayed ends …

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PQ Poem

Sleeping Apart

by Jennifer Jackson Berry

Sometimes he decides to sleep in the spare room & there is a part of me glad. He wants the TV on I don’t. We both snore & bother each other with it. He says I steal covers, I say he moves past middle if I get up for the bathroom In summer, there are …

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PQ Poem

Zen or the Art of Trying Harder

by Robert Walicki

When the yoga instructor tells me to relax, she uses the word Vinyasa, and that almost helps, as I unfold the jigsaw puzzle of my body, the old house of my bones, creaking. But it’s ok, because this is gentle yoga, meditation for the inflexible. And I know this act has something to do with …

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PQ Poem

Jack Gilbert (1925-2012)

by Scott Silsbe

When I was 18 years old and knew next to nothing about poetry besides Bill Wordsworth and Ed Poe, my composition teacher passed a photocopy of one of your poems out to our class and it changed my life. I knew I hadn’t ever read a poem quite like it before. It seemed like everywhere …

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PQ Poem

I Knew I Wasn’t Poor

by Jan Beatty

I knew I wasn’t poor, because I had a choice: buy tampons or birth control pills. I shoplifted. When I opened the oven door, splitting the closet-sized kitchen in half, my only plan was heat. The ice smooth on the inside of the windows, the no money to pay the bill. I knew I wasn’t …

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PQ Poem

Home Movies

by Robert Gibb

i. That severe unspoken savor she’d bring with her To the table, family gatherings after grace, Your plate filled, as always, With whatever had passed through her hands— The aunt who’d married wearing weeds, A black-clad Bride of Christ. Mantle, habit, scapular, guimpe . . . No wonder we called them penguins. In school they …

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