LYRAE VAN CLIEF-STEFANON
“Lyrae was a winner of the 2001 Cave Canem Poetry Prize (the Pitt Poetry Series is one of three publishers of the Cave Canem prizewinners). Her first book, Black Swan, was well-reviewed and sold well. Her new book, ]Open Interval[ is amazing. I heard Lyrae present some of those longer, new poems in a summer garden reading, and it was one of those events where you could hear the crowd's intake of breath, and then silence, and then huge applause.”
—Ed Ochester
Transit of Venus
The actors mill about the party saying rhubarb
because other words do not sound like conversation.
In the kitchen, always, one who’s just discovered
beauty, his mouth full of whiskey and strawberries.
He practices the texture of her hair with his tongue;
in her, five billion electrons pop their atoms. Rhubarb
in electromagnetic loops, rhubarb, rhubarb, the din increases.
“Transit of Venus” from ]Open Interval[$14.95 • 96 pp.
© 2009 University of Pittsburgh Press
Also by Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon from the Pitt Poetry Series:
Black Swan $12.95
American Poetry Now features poems by many poets from the Pitt Poetry Series.
