Over the Anvil We Stretch

by Anis Mojgani

Overview

Over The Anvil We Stretch contains swampy, powerful poems that are as exciting as the pocket knife you got for your birthday, the three legged frog on the lawn and the jar of marbles your mother kept in the kitchen.
 
Mojgani's poems are the sound of the river and the stars burning above. He manages to capture the axe in the stump with blood still on the handle. Anis Mojgani has drawn a map of the country in the shape of his wild dreams. These are memories of a life, captured through the blue green filter of the bayou.
 
Mojgani's latest poems are tinged with the sound of crickets spying on us in the darkness. They move forward honestly, brutally and sweetly. The reader will be led into briar patches as well as the moonlight just on the other side.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780981521343
Publisher:	Write Bloody Publishing
Publication date:	08/30/2008
Edition description:	First edition
Pages:	120
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Anis Mojgani was the Poet Laureate of Oregon. A two-time individual champion of the National Poetry Slam and winner of the International World Cup Poetry Slam, he has been awarded residencies from the Vermont Studio Center, Caldera, AIR Serenbe, The Bloedel Nature Reserve, The Sou'wester, and the Oregon Literary Arts Writers-In-The-Schools program. A recipient of an Academy of American Poets Poet Laureate Fellowship, Anis has done commissions for the Getty Museum and the Peabody Essex Museum; and his work has appeared on HBO, National Public Radio, and elsewhere. ,

Read an Excerpt

THE MANUAL

squeeze 20 grapes in your cheeks
bit down
spit watermelon seeds
I bet you five pieces you can't spit 'em further than me
kick a can
chase trains
wave at strangers
drive an imaginary submarine
make one out of a box
sleep on a floor with a blanket and a lantern
draw birds
live forever
plant a tree
write your fist on a wall
run for no reason down the middle of the block
laugh at something funny
smile at sweetness
hold your fingers around it so it doesn't fall
find a dark row in a movie theater
and make out with me
your kisses are a game of horseshoes
I wish I were playing
beneath the stars fat and wet with light
high in the full black sky
so big and silent
it can carry us through this crazy thing
dance under it
listen for the sounds the fields make
the tongues the trees are speaking in
the love the leaves are making with the wind
swallow it down
this is church
your teeth tiny doors

Editorial Reviews

Anvil is a book of poetic truth, packed with humor and insight. It is a juggling act of the epic and the intimate. I read it, and it echoes. Shut up so I can hear more."
– David Gordon Green, filmmaker, All the Real Girls and The Pineapple Express
 
"Anis Mojgani, Andrea Gibson, and other young poets of their talent are the future of American poetry, and frankly, that fills me with joy!"
– Thomas Lux, Guggenheim Fellow & recipient of the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award for his book, Split Horizons
 
"[Anis is] probably the best poetry slammer alive. The intellect, optimism, and humility with which he speaks feel like proof of the relevance of 'spoken word' as a genre. He processes the world in slices of beauty, frustration, and sympathy..."
– Willamette Week Newspaper

From the Publisher