Jon Pineda

Jon Pineda Poems

Jon Pineda Biography

Jon Pineda (born Charleston, South Carolina) is an American poet, memoirist, and novelist. Jon Pineda was raised in Chesapeake, Virginia. He graduated from James Madison University and Virginia Commonwealth University. His work has appeared in Poetry Northwest, The Literary Review, Sou'wester, Prairie Schooner, Many Mountains Moving, Asian Pacific American Journal, Puerto del Sol, and elsewhere. He is the author of the novel Apology, winner of the 2013 Milkweed National Fiction Prize. His memoir Sleep in Me was a 2010 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection. His poetry collections include The Translator's Diary, winner of the 2007 Green Prize for Poetry from New Issues Press, and Birthmark, first place winner in the 2003 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry Open Competition Awards. He currently teaches in the low-residency MFA program at Queens University of Charlotte and is a member of the creative writing faculty at the University of Mary Washington.)

The Best Poem Of Jon Pineda

The Muse, Or Stars Out On Interstate 81 South

On the tip of a hill, the silhouette is of something not of this world,
the body silent in the birth of another shadow, swelling still

among stars & veins. The sun dropping below the mountains left
hardly any light, except what glimmers on the membrane & slips

into the high grass. Alone, I pulled over to the side
of 81 where semis' blowing horns descend

beyond the sloped field. Pieces of barbed wire snapped from the line.
I stepped through the fence, its blood-colored rust rubbed into my hands.

For a moment, it is something that stays with me, like a memory
that does not give up easily. I try wiping my hands onto my jeans, but nothing.

It is anything it wants to be—calf, half-life, angel—its fur a glaze
of cricket sounds & cool air, a thing of stars burnt into hooves, a haze,

& I stood there, not knowing whether it would be right to touch the one
not breathing, its nose drying in the grass next to my hands, grit

in the creases & burning now with the dust of splinters. Like flies,
my fingers hover over the dead face.

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