Poem of the Week | September 03, 2013
Rebecca Morgan Frank: “Spokes of Venus”
This week, we’re featuring a new poem by Rebecca Morgan Frank. Frank is the author of the poetry collection Little Murders Everywhere (Salmon Poetry), a finalist for the 2013 Kate Tufts Discovery Award. Her poems have appeared in such places as Guernica, Ploughshares, The Georgia Review, Post Road, Crazyhorse, and Best New Poets 2008. She is the recipient of the Poetry Society of America’s 2010 Alice Fay di Castagnola Award for her new manuscript-in-progress. The co-founder and editor-in-chief of the online magazine Memorious, she is an assistant professor at the University of Southern Mississippi’s Center for Writers.
Spokes of Venus
Percival Lowell was not the first man to see himself
in Venus, to see his own shadows on her form, for
what is love but
a mirror? Yet to see
oneself so closely
in the atmosphere, the planets as familiar
as the orb you see them from, this is as the mineral-
wrought tears of the old stone.
Condensation pearls over porcelain, plaster leaks–
Something isn’t right.
Lowell swore to his own testimony; you see, he’d seen it with
his own eyes. Everything before us
looks like life. The figures we make
cry because we make them.
The sky is watching us like an eye.
Author’s Note
This poem emerged from a mealtime conversation with visual artists at a residency. We joked about having “educational breakfasts,” but the truth is that those organic conversations, which wove between the research and creative work each of us were immersed in and amusing and interesting things we knew little about, were the seeds of several poems for me. When the artist told us the story of the astronomer Lowell, she remembered it as being about Mars. When I went to read the New York Times article about him, and discovered that it was Venus that he thought he was seeing, I knew I wanted to write this poem.
My newest work comes from conversations with artists, whether in-person, through their writing, or, sometimes, through their work. I’m interested in moving beyond how I see the world, in finding ways to try on other ways of seeing. But maybe, like Percival Lowell, this always brings me back to merely observing and sketching myself. What interests me most about Lowell is his conviction, how he adamantly defended his way of seeing the world. I’m not sure that what I do as a poet is so different. But I’ll keep trying to adjust the lens.
SEE THE ISSUE
SUGGESTED CONTENT

Poem of the Week
Feb 22 2021
Marlin M. Jenkins “o god let me be soft”
This week’s Poem of the Week is “o god let me be soft” by Marlin M. Jenkins! Marlin M. Jenkins was born and raised in Detroit and currently lives in… read more

Poem of the Week
Feb 15 2021
Dana Alsamsam “The Day Before Moving Day”
This week’s Poem of the Week is “The Day Before Moving Day” by Dana Alsamsam! Dana Alsamsam is a first generation Syrian-American from Chicago and is currently based in Boston… read more

Poem of the Week
Feb 08 2021
Carlie Hoffman “Writing Prompt in Which You Create a Character Out of Someone You Know”
This week’s Poem of the Week is “Writing Prompt in Which You Create a Character Out of Someone You Know” by Carlie Hoffman! Carlie Hoffman is the author of two… read more