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Dante Distefano
Recent Activity
The Poem Rivers Forward to the Sea: A Conversation Between Dante Di Stefano and H. L. Hix
Posted Jun 28, 2023 at The Best American Poetry
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3
Meet the Press: Etruscan Press's Tribus Imprint
Posted Sep 11, 2021 at The Best American Poetry
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For the Stars Over Paterson [a review by Dante Di Stefano]
Posted Aug 27, 2021 at The Best American Poetry
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6
Five Recent Poems I Love [by Dante Di Stefano]
Posted Jun 4, 2021 at The Best American Poetry
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3
Meet the Press: Roof Books & Queenzenglish.mp3
Posted May 28, 2021 at The Best American Poetry
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A Note on Alison C. Rollins' Poem "Why Is We Americans"
Posted Apr 28, 2021 at The Best American Poetry
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10 Poems from DIALOGIST
Posted Apr 23, 2021 at The Best American Poetry
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In Memoriam: Daneen Wardrop & Laura Boss
Posted Apr 16, 2021 at The Best American Poetry
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Book Recommendation: Philip Brady's The Elsewhere: Poems and Poetics
Posted Apr 15, 2021 at The Best American Poetry
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Meet the Press: Plan B Press and Alan King’s Crooked Smiling Light
Posted Feb 5, 2021 at The Best American Poetry
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Meet the Press: Tupelo Press Anthologizes Poetry of the Pandemic
Posted Jan 1, 2021 at The Best American Poetry
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The Many Golden Bees that Hum Inside My Heart: 3 New Books
Posted Dec 21, 2020 at The Best American Poetry
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Two Poems by Dante Di Stefano
Dante Di Stefano's "Reading Dostoyevsky at Seventeen" was chosen by Dana Gioia for The Best American Poetry 2018. "Exodus," the second poem here, is of the same vintage. -- DL Reading Dostoyevsky at Seventeen In those days, my dreams always changed titles before they were finished and I wanted only to love in that insane tortured way of poor dear Dmitri Karamazov. Suddenly, I was speaking the language of lapdog and samovar. This is the ballroom, the barracks, the firing squad. This is the old monk with the beard of bees. This is the orange lullaby the moon [of the moon] will sing you when it’s grieving. This is the province you escape by train, fleeing heavy snow and eternal elk. This is the part where I take your hand in my hand and I tell you we are burning. Exodus It takes a lifetime’s blindness to see one’s father. —Cid Corman My father mumbled forth his violated commandments for half my life. I inscribed them on incense and holy water and when I drank them they tasted like cigarette ashes in a coca cola can. There were no tablets save the pills he didn’t take. Like Moses stuttering to the stones and scrub brush, his dictates turned me into a desperate Aaron, bewildered, dutifully translating the fire raging in a reed thicket into the voice of God. He slept for days on end, dreaming apple orchards. He believed the smell of college elevator steel was sacred. Once he pronounced the stars memory-less pickpockets. He decried windows. He expounded upon the intractability of silverware. I fought him twice and both times he had the strength of the archangel ascending into heaven, swooping down the mountain. Birds were not his emissaries. Canaan, he would have us all know, was a broken dinner plate and asparagus-spattered walls. From the edge of his hospital bed, I finally saw him unfolding in time and I could almost see him. Last night, as he nodded in his recliner, weak from the new medicine he’s taking, I knew no staff would split this rock. Continue reading
Posted Dec 18, 2020 at The Best American Poetry
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Meet the Press: Iniquity Press, Vendetta Books & Big Hammer
Posted Oct 2, 2020 at The Best American Poetry
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Blurred Enchantment: A Review of Youna Kwak's sur vie
Posted Aug 17, 2020 at The Best American Poetry
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Meet the Press: Free-Grace Press—A Conversation with Clifford Jackman
Posted May 2, 2020 at The Best American Poetry
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Three Book Recommendations for National Poetry Month, 2020
Posted Apr 20, 2020 at The Best American Poetry
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Nickole Brown's The Donkey Elegies
Posted Mar 23, 2020 at The Best American Poetry
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Meet the Press: Able Muse Press
Posted Jan 5, 2020 at The Best American Poetry
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What Saves Us: Poems of Empathy and Outrage in the Age of Trump
Posted Dec 16, 2019 at The Best American Poetry
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Meet the Press: Press 53 & Patricia Colleen Murphy’s Bully Love
Posted Jul 7, 2019 at The Best American Poetry
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Meet the Press: PANK Books—A Conversation with Jessica Fischoff
Posted May 3, 2019 at The Best American Poetry
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I Will Wear My Wounds in Chapters: Six Chapbooks
Posted Apr 15, 2019 at The Best American Poetry
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Meet the Press: Headmistress Press: An Interview with Mary Meriam
Posted Mar 1, 2019 at The Best American Poetry
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Ungovernable Venom: A Review of Joseph Spece’s Bad Zoo
Posted Jan 21, 2019 at The Best American Poetry
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