John Wall Barger
John Wall Barger’s third book of poems, The Book of Festus (Palimpsest Press), was a finalist for the 2016 J.M. Abraham Poetry Award. Work appears in American Poetry Review, Rattle, The Cincinnati Review, Poetry Ireland Review, and Best of the Best Canadian Poetry. His poem, “Smog Mother,” was co-winner of the Malahat Review’s 2017 Long Poem Prize. He is currently living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and is on the editorial board at Painted Bride Quarterly.
Articles by
John Wall Barger
Festus, Hansel & Grendel
April 2015
I.
Live music
from a storm window
What gardens, these?
What Victorian mansions?
Past a memory
of Saint Paul dying
in John Doull’s Bookstore
What City is this what street river square?
What plan?
A seagull gorges on a starfish
beside the casino funhouse
arching its mouth
its neck full
of chronicles
of harbour…
Hydra
April 2011
I float with a ladybug in bubbles. You swim over
smiling, our unkind games of wit at lunch
purged in the cool water. I stick out my feet.
The low sun warms them. Not enough is at stake.
But I admire how Claudio navigates his car,
his baby girl in the back. Like an elaborate removal
of a…