STEVEN TOUSSAINT
The pond
like a portrait
in diptych, an
ebullient
screen, to
sip at
one’s own mask
of nacre
is your silence
like that?
beneath
the cold reed
pads, a fish
shivers
dismailing
LISTEN to ‘The pond’ by Steven Toussaint
Steven Toussaint immigrated to New Zealand from the United States in 2011. He is a graduate of both the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the International Institute of Modern Letters, and currently serves as the Writer in Residence at the University of Waikato. He is the author of a chapbook, Fiddlehead (Compound Press, 2014), and a full-length poetry collection, The Bellfounder (The Cultural Study Society, 2015). In addition, his poems have appeared in periodicals throughout the Anglo-sphere, most recently Denver Quarterly, The Spinoff, and Verge. With his wife, the novelist Eleanor Catton, Steven administers the Horoeka/Lancewood Reading Grant.
Links
The Bellfounder at Small Press Distribution:
Interview with Alex Taylor at The Pantograph Punch
Steven Toussaint’s blog
Horoeka/Lancewood Reading Grant