Tara Skurtu

Death Machine
July 26, 2025 Skurtu Tara

DEATH MACHINE

 

because the dead couldn’t speak
the people spoke
people were dying
and wanted to live
death lived
the living were dying
and those who witnessed
the death of a people
spoke didn’t speak
and the dead lived more deaths
when they needed
to speak

Tara Skurtu is the author of the chapbook Skurtu, Romania, the full poetry collection The Amoeba Game, and the forthcoming collection Faith Farm. A two-time Fulbright grantee and recipient of a Robert Pinsky Global Fellowship, the Marcia Keach Poetry Prize, and two Academy of American Poets prizes, her poems and translations have appeared in magazines such as AGNI, The Baffler, The Common, The Kenyon Review, and Salmagundi. Tara is a member of the Brooklyn Poets Board of Directors. She lives in New York, where she teaches poetry and is a writing coach for clients worldwide.

 

photo credit: Spencer Ostrander