Transcript: Poems on Air, Episode 26 - Felicia Zamora

[Music intro]

LYNNE THOMPSON: Hello! My name is Lynne Thompson, Poet Laureate for the City of Los Angeles and I’m so happy to welcome listeners to this installment of Poems on Air, a podcast supported by the Los Angeles Public Library. Every week, I’ll present the work of poets I admire, poets who you should know, and poets who have made a substantial and inimitable contribution to the art and craft of poetry.

LYNNE THOMPSON: National Hispanic Heritage Month, established by Congress in 1968 as a week’s celebration and expanded to a month-long in 1988, is recognized September 15th through October 15th and observes the national independence of several Latin and Central American countries. The poets of that diaspora have deeply enriched the American poetry scene. One of those is Felicia Zamora, a poet, editor, and educator who is an assistant professor of poetry at the University of Cincinnati and is the associate poetry editor for the Colorado Review.

LYNNE THOMPSON: Today’s poem is "O is for Passage" by Felicia Zamora.

O is for Passage

To know seasons by shadows, hawk breath, the dip of day early
& not early; a page exists for each of these; this too; as in sky,
it’s all happening at once & you wonder how to hold a drop of
rain outside the wet; all these puzzles with no solutions &
nothing to

puzzle in to or out from; you remember your cells

belonging to others, before the dark grew you

of flesh in weave, of veins in form; to incubate; to taste world
in liquid first; to know sky as your creator’s belly; feel the
continuous hug of organs in soak; a haunt before womb; these
months too a season; a swarm of molecules & atoms in bind; &
in float, a spark;
& an O for passage; mouth in gape before the tongue learns—

LYNNE THOMPSON: The Los Angeles Poet Laureate was created as a joint program between the City’s Department of Cultural Affairs and the Los Angeles Public Library and this podcast will be available on the library’s website. In the future, episodes will be available on iTunes, Google, and Spotify. Thanks for listening!

[Music outro]

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    • DISCLAIMER: This is NOT a certified or verbatim transcript, but rather represents only the context of the class or meeting, subject to the inherent limitations of real-time captioning. The primary focus of real-time captioning is general communication access and as such this document is not suitable, acceptable, nor is it intended for use in any type of legal proceeding. Transcript provided by the author.

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