By — Tom LeGro Tom LeGro Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/weekly-poem-fish-head-for-katrina Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Weekly Poem: ‘Fish Head for Katrina’ Arts Nov 22, 2010 1:18 PM EDT By Terrance Hayes The mouth is where the dead Who are not dead do not dream A house of damaged translations Task married to distraction As in a bucket left in a storm A choir singing in the rain like fish Acquiring air under water Prayer and sin the body Performs to know it is alive Lit from the inside by reckoning As in a city Which is no longer a city The tongue reaching down a tunnel And the teeth wet as windows Set along a highway Where the dead live in the noise Of their shotgun houses They drift from their wards Like fish spreading thin as a song Diminished by its own opening Split by faith and soaked in it The mouth is a flooded machine Terrance Hayes, a creative writing professor at Carnegie Mellon, received the National Book Award for poetry for his collection, “Lighthead.” The PBS NewsHour profiled Hayes in 2008. You can hear Hayes reading some of his older poems here at our Poetry Series. We're not going anywhere. Stand up for truly independent, trusted news that you can count on! Donate now By — Tom LeGro Tom LeGro
By Terrance Hayes The mouth is where the dead Who are not dead do not dream A house of damaged translations Task married to distraction As in a bucket left in a storm A choir singing in the rain like fish Acquiring air under water Prayer and sin the body Performs to know it is alive Lit from the inside by reckoning As in a city Which is no longer a city The tongue reaching down a tunnel And the teeth wet as windows Set along a highway Where the dead live in the noise Of their shotgun houses They drift from their wards Like fish spreading thin as a song Diminished by its own opening Split by faith and soaked in it The mouth is a flooded machine Terrance Hayes, a creative writing professor at Carnegie Mellon, received the National Book Award for poetry for his collection, “Lighthead.” The PBS NewsHour profiled Hayes in 2008. You can hear Hayes reading some of his older poems here at our Poetry Series. We're not going anywhere. Stand up for truly independent, trusted news that you can count on! Donate now