<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The alchemist was given the island\nto see what he could make with its distance\u2014\nred glass he called jewel and isolation.\n\nI have been given no island, and yet\nI made a baby, another. Jewel and isolation\nwere valued, but the island was taken back\n\nfrom the alchemist. I\u2019m often given\na place to leave\u2014words glassy\nin the wake of departure. And glass\n\nis no ruby. Blood is no ruby,\nno border. I believed this even\nbefore I came to the mainland\n\nwhere blood is everywhere\na key. Oh! The architecture. Or:\nOh! That asshole. On the island\n\nthere\u2019s little red glass remaining. Who\nwants a room filled with the blood\nof light, the dredge of imitation sun,\n\nthe thrum of being inside a body\nand the seep and the lack of armor?\nHere make armor with this:\n\nfake jewel, impending isolation.\n\n<\/pre>\n
\n <\/p>\n
\n
\n <\/p>\nPeacock Island, Its Alchemist<\/h4>\n
\u201cDear friend, dear friend, for a long Zeit\nI lived here inside my Glaslaboratorium\nand wondered glass into rubies. Glass is not\nenough. Its seethroughness will pull you\n\nthrough into a poverty of flash. The princes\nwant to prance red in reflection so I smelt\nuntil the glass swarms bloody\nwith fine gold dust. Fire made me\n\na fancy man of change and then made me\na ruin, ruined transformation, showed\nmy light hold on the space between yes<\/em> and uh oh<\/em>.\nTo be forced off an island\u2014the rabbits\n\nstaring at your back as you go\u2014it\u2019s losing your own\ndense core. Even here in Sweden, I can\u2019t blush.\u201d\n\n\f\n<\/pre>\n
\n <\/p>\n
\n
\n <\/p>\nX<\/h4>\n
The city of X: The blackbird\u2019s\nunadulterated vocabulary.<\/em>\nWhat infiltrates the blackbird\u2019s\n\nsentiment? Crow\ncaw, death maw. I too\nkeep my languages straight,\n\nspeak Y in Y. A in A. I speak\nMe in Me. I yell sound\ninto the water of the bath.\n\n(Cover me, water.) But still:\nthe languages inbreed\nsilt. Songbirds have an organ\n\nfor song. The city of X is an organ\nfor home. Pum pum.\nI am an organ for what I choose:\n\nviolence or thought.\nSex or sleep. Eating or walking.\nI don\u2019t sing. I don\u2019t swim.\n\nOn the tour of nothing\nleft I can hear the old\ndialect in the walls singing,\n\ndon\u2019t sing,\ndon\u2019t swim,\nviolence or thought<\/em>.\n\n\n<\/pre>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n <\/p>\n
\n
\nJennifer Kronovet is the author of two poetry collections: The Wug Test<\/em> (Ecco Press, 2016) and Awayward <\/em>(BOA Editions, 2007). Using the name Jennifer Stern, she co-translated Empty Chairs<\/em>, the poetry of Chinese writer Liu Xia, and she also co-translated The Acrobat<\/em>, selected poems of experimental Yiddish writer Celia Dropkin. She edits Circumference Books<\/em>, a new press for poetry in translation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Peacock Island, Its Alchemist | Peacock Island, Its Alchemist | x<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1398,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[69],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1366"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}