Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Poem of the Week: Randall Horton












Photo by Rachel Eliza Griffiths



Note from a Prodigal Son III


The gavel

The splintered body

The red-neck guards

The state dungarees

The grey cinder block

The naked shower

The elemental fear

The unspoken yoke

The mercy plea

The awakening

The trembling hands

The walk to chow

The razor fence

The barrel’s scope

The Rottweiler’s teeth

The hesitation

The guttural pain

The calls refused

The return to sender

The rivulet of tears

The frozen heart

The opaque night

The seclusion

The muffled screams

The masturbation

The silence



-Randall Horton



From The Lingua Franca of Ninth Street (Main Street Rag 2009). Used by permission.


Randall Horton, originally from Birmingham, Alabama, resides in New Haven, CT and is a former recipient of the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize. He is the author of the poetry collections The Lingua Franca of Ninth Street and The Definition of Place, both from Main Street Rag. He is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of New Haven and the poetry editor of Willow Books.


Horton appeared on the panel Dissidence, Memory, and Music in African American Poetry during Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness 2010.

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202-787-5210


1 comment:

  1. Randall Horton, please keep the Alabama Writers' Forum posted on YOU! We want to know more about you and hope you'll send us books and keep us in the loop of your great work. We always want to know what our Alabama sons and daughters are up to elsewhere, outside the "briar patch" as Al Murray would say! I'll be seeing him next week in the Big Apple, I hope.
    Your new fan,
    Jeanie Thompson
    Executive Director
    The Alabama Writers' Forum
    www.writersforum.org.

    ReplyDelete