Beauty and the Beast

“Beauty and the Beast,” a poem by faculty member Gabrielle Calvocoressi, appeared recently in the New York Times Magazine. The poem is accompanied by an original drawing by artist Joshua Abelow.

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He’s huge. Standing there in the woods where I didn’t even see him at first. He doesn’t know I’m looking and then he moves a little bit and kicks the ground. I was walking by myself as the sun set. I kept going in deeper to the greenest spot until I found a clearing. He was the clearing. He took the clearing up and stood there still and watched me till I saw him. I saw his shoulders first and then his neck. I think he was so golden in the sun I didn’t know what he was. And I thought the branches were his horns. I thought he was an eight point stag. And how his chest made a kind of giant heart out of me out of my eyes looking. And he let me look. …[Keep Reading]…

Gabrielle is the author of Apocalyptic Swing Poems (2009, Persea Books).