POETRY

“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.”
—Rita Dove
An Interview with Dylan Krieger

Dylan Krieger’s poetry is unflinching, grotesque, and beautiful. Her work tackles trauma, wrestles authority, and is a decadent sonic feast.

Sprung (April)

I like to think I’m also sprung,
released from the furnace knocks,
done with the heavy meat stews
and salty soups.

Several someones

a folksome, gruesome opera
of gauze and malcontent.

The River

I myself should never have been born

Unerased | Steep Steps

My grandmother asked, “Does it feel like being widowed?”

Snow Falls from Branches

Should have found a job by now; should have slept in the night;
should have boiled old coffee before noon.

An Endeavor of Being Now

We stop doing dishes while
a mile unwinds
from the tree outside.

Time Travel

I count my homes—
those of my scattered youth
the sanctuary of our young family
the intermittent rest stops
of apartments and vacations.

Despairathon

You’ve spent a lifetime training
for this.

Dis Place Ment

People have always coped with flooding, and they learned to cope with death.

The Kotel in Jerusalem is Filled with Cracks

We found in his suitcase T-shirts, his siddur, gifts he bought for his grandchildren…

Fallout Shelter

I imagined a cascade of slow death for all / that mattered…

“Artifact,” as Translated from Gluberhöff’s Lexicon

Any still figure at mid-late evening, when the long shadows make even crumbs appear arranged like furniture.

oh Manifesto

The collective
failure
of ethical standards

A Beautiful Thing

I want to roll in this moment until I become its vocabulary
until I smell like the bones
until I am its echo…

Vase

The storm passes without snow.
The car waits loyally in the back lot.

3:17 AM as Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks

Part of being a good sad person
is always painting the shadows
in the right direction and knowing
what sorrow to art with.

The Man

the man is stayed bent over the canvas
of my sofa. the man is me the man is him
self and I bring down the whip…

Welcome To The House of Static

here is the sky in stop motion, flickering,
a still shot in monochrome