Time’s Language II Selected Poems (2019-2023)

Time’ s Language I (Wings Press, 2018) included selections from Margaret Randall’ s poetry collections beginning with her first self-published book in 1959 and ending six decades later. Time’ s Language II picks up where its predecessor left off, enabling readers to savor Randall’ s later, more mature, work. Here are robust selections from Against Atrocity, Out of Violence into Poetry, Stormclouds Like Unkept Promises, Vertigo of Risk, Your Answer is Your Map, and Home, as well as Starfish on a Beach— the author’ s poetic response to the Covid pandemic— and her most recent as yet uncollected production. Together, the two volumes present the range and depth of a poet whose work belongs to two centuries and records a woman’ s intimate life as well as her personal involvement with some of the most dramatic events of our time. A life of poetry in its fullest expression!

Margaret Randall (New York, 1936) is a poet, essayist, oral historian, translator, photographer, and social activist. She lived in Latin America for 23 years (in Mexico, Cuba, and Nicaragua). With Mexican poet Sergio Mondragó n she founded, and from 1962 to 1969 co-edited, El Corno Emplumado / The Plumed Horn, a bilingual literary quarterly that published some of the best new work of the sixties. She is the author of over 150 books, and is considered nothing less than a counter-cultural hero and feminist icon.

Contents Margaret’ s Hands, by Barbara Byers frontis Author’ s Note xii Made Rich by Art and Revolution xiii Introduction: The poem happens on its own terms xv by Katherine M. Hedeen and Ví ctor Rodrí guez Nú ñ ez From Against Atrocity San Antonio, Texas: Wings Press 2019 Counting Backward 2 Crisscrossing this Generous Nest 4 The Rains Themselves Made No Excuse 6 Every Outdated Map 7 Every Fear Receives a Million Hits 9 The World is Flat 10 Memory Rounds the Corner 12 The Verb to break 13 She Knows 15 2020 18 Memory as a Physics Problem 22 From Starfish on a Beach: The Pandemic Poems San Antonio, Texas: Wings Press 2020 Statistics 26 Beneath the Waves 28 State of Exception 29 Spiral 31 Eighty Times More 33 From Out of Violence into Poetry San Antonio, Texas: Wings Press 2020 One Tectonic Plate Slipping Beneath Another 36 Out of Violence into Poetry 38 Voice 40 Lifetime Warranty 41 Tongue Seeking Solace 43 Molecules Sometimes Wonder 45 Each Toy Argues its Future 47 The Hole October Leaves 49 With Memory Clinging to My Back 51 Those Memories We’ ve Forgotten 53 Memory and Echo Play Together in a Modern-Day Garden of Eden 55 From Stormclouds Like Unkept Promises Abiquiu, New Mexico: Casa Urraca Press 2022 About the Light 58 Still Life, Winter 2021 60 Every Death an Act of Survival 61 My Mother’ s Breasts 64 Your Story, Your Escape 66 Medusa 67 Talk is Cheap 68 Prometheus Punished 69 Drops of Blood on White Snow 71 Gretel and Hansel 73 Backward Feet 75 Malintzí n 77 Waiting Our Turn 79 Writing the Future 81 From Vertigo of Risk Abiquiu, New Mexico: Casa Urraca Press 2023 Dearest Ruth 84 Dearest Mark 86 Dearest Laurette 88 Dearest Felipe 91 Dearest Roque 93 Dearest Maru 95 Dearest Paul 98 Dearest Ceferino 100 Dearest Kathy 102 Nepantla 104 When I Lived 108 Geode 110 Back to Front or Inside Out 111 My Father’ s Eyes 113 Becoming Ourselves 114 All Those Years Ago 116 My Theory of Nothing 118 The Sum of One and One 120 Understanding Metaphor 122 When I Die 123 Never the Compliment it Pretends 125 Desert 127 The Acequias 129 Water’ s Desire 130 Ode to Typography 131 Footprints 137 The Hole in Your Calendar 139 Dubious Gifts 142 Not Even the Cheetah 144 From Home Abiquiu, New Mexico: Casa Urraca Press 2023 This Home on My Back 148 Home as Oxymoron 151 The Shame no Wearable Can Erase 152 The Great Houses, Chaco 155 Nothing but Need at their Side 160 A Different Language 162 Their Houses 165 If Forced to Go 169 Adobe Dreams 171 What I Harvest 173 Homeless 175 What We Can Pretend We Do Not See 177 Faked Orgasms and Beloved Books 179 Non-Negotiable 181 This Table 182 From Your Answer is Your Map Green River, Vermont: Bob & Susan Arnold’ s Longhouse, 2023 Our Progress is Plastic and Cement 186 The Cranes are Coming 189 Your Answer is Your Map 191 Change 193 Uncollected Poems Life as It Was 198 Moving from Escher to Silence 200 Failed Translation? 203 Waving Goodbye to the Shadow of Myself 207 Silence 210 Room 5007 212 About the Author 223 About the Authors of the Introduction 225