Donald Revell

CATAFALQUE
May 25, 2018 Revell Donald

CATAFALQUE

 

Angel of the gap thrills to floodwaters

Like a man slapped by a man slapped,

Newsworthy Africa.

 

How much of the world fits or is navigable

Depends entirely upon thrilling angels.

Pins and needles, the neural system of

Lacustrine, riverine, and lately

This pain in my groin rising

Creaturely.

 

Horizon shuns the morning star this morning.

English overtops the trees with prophecy.

Clement waters, misplaced by mountains,

Seek new outlets, finding only

You and me. And I’m not there.

Donald Revell is the author of sixteen collections of poetry, most recently of Canandaigua (2024) and White Campion (2021). Revell has also published six volumes of translations from the French, including Apollinaire’s Alcools, Rimbaud’s A Season in Hell, Laforgue’s Last Verses, and Verlaine’s Songs without Words. His critical writings have been collected as: Sudden Eden: EssaysEssay: A Critical Memoir; The Art of Attention; and Invisible Green: Selected Prose. Winner of the PEN USA Translation Award and two-time winner of the PEN USA Award for Poetry, he has also won the Academy of American Poets’ Lenore Marshall Prize and is a former Fellow of the Ingram Merrill and Guggenheim Foundations. Additionally, he has twice been awarded Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts.  Having previously taught at the Universities of Alabama, Denver, Iowa, Missouri, Tennessee, and Utah, Donald Revell is now Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.