Randall Horton (2011)

Author's Statement

To receive the National Endowment of the Arts award makes possible a continued and concentrated study in the field of poetry. I am most humbled and appreciative of how this award will support my goal of poetic engagement with the larger world community, as well as, those communities that often are excluded or ignored. We writers spend countless hours in solitude, huddled over our journals and computers, looking for the right combination of syllables to compel a poem to sing or cut like a dagger. We never know if the poems we are nurturing will see the light of day, or if anyone will ever read them. Each poem requires so much dedication and attention. In many ways, this award is an affirmation, a way of saying, "Randall you can keep on going just a little while longer, and that the work you are doing is important to someone here in this place that we call Earth." I sincerely thank the National Endowment of the Arts for having that certain faith in me.

from "Ten Signifiers Characteristic of (Us) As Reported By Carolyn Rogers"

3. Coversoff

BROTHER KEEPER WE GONE LEAP INTO A BRAND NEW THANG

the windowpain is a gateway to hurt
rolling down the hillside. we navigate

landscape altered & forever twisted
in the cane break, or cain broke repeatedly

his crooked oath. our downpressor
brother artist ceaselessly has tried to blot out

darkn(us) with a misremembered horizon
almost drowning. a diminutive tear

barely noticeable but nonetheless.
no shelter for the eternal fugitive who

wanting to fly away through the pane
flies--: at a moment’s notice, sneaks

through the square structure so bent
on x-ing (us)--: a storied beauty.

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