The Subtle Bodies

The Subtle Bodies moves between lush landscapes and the violence imposed by humans upon the land, making contact with the world as it ebbs into a digitized silence.

Into bracken, goldenrod, thick meadows
it is all here

nothing is for granted
or said another way, everything granted
forthcoming, always

errancy and directed, maple-starts in last year’s leaf litter
and inch-thick saplings in the lilac’s
nest of limbs

James McCorkle grew up in Florida, received his MFA at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, his PhD from the University of Iowa, and currently teaches at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in New York.