Stephen Motika

Stephen Motika Poems

instead, insulted. to look, in green light. redact. can you read... the oracular, such indifference. failing in the halls of an unknown.

to have powered down. mission. some sort of cavalcade, plane flight caucus to indifference. a mission,
...

shoals in sparked night
real creatures crushed by

heated hunter
...

Stephen Motika Biography

Stephen Motika (born 1977 in Santa Monica, CA) is an American poet, editor, and publisher. Motika is the publisher of Nightboat Books, a literary non-profit publisher based in New York's Upper Delaware River Valley. He is the editor of Leland Hickman's Tiresias: The Collected Poems of Leland Hickman (2009), and the author of the chapbooks, "Arrival and At Mono" (2007) and "In the Madrones" (2011), both published by Sona Books. His first book of poems, Western Practice was published by Alice James Books in April 2012. Motika's work has appeared in Eleven Eleven, The Boog City Reader 4, The Poetry Project Newsletter, The National Post of Canada, Another Chicago Magazine, and The Common Review. The Field, his collaboration with visual artist Dianna Frid, was on view at Gallery 400 at the University of Illinois, Chicago, in December 2003. He is the director of public programs, exhibitions, and education at Poets House in New York City.)

The Best Poem Of Stephen Motika

to have been, instead

instead, insulted. to look, in green light. redact. can you read... the oracular, such indifference. failing in the halls of an unknown.

to have powered down. mission. some sort of cavalcade, plane flight caucus to indifference. a mission, museum, the night in the unknown. a city.

raked forest leaves, consorted with compost fires, down in steam, walked an incline, slipped to fall. the clatter of bones on buried stones, on those leaves fallen, but not as fast as I fell.

in Turrell's dim light, I realized the failure of the art official. an artificial stance, an impossibility: to speak and listen simultaneously.

the train bed, we call them tracks, where two ties swim beneath. a gossip, these gadgets, soaked in white scrimmed preamble. I made the mistake of coming closer, again.

ihe rejection, a mastication of the brain, those thoughts that fuel the day. I can't, besides, canning involves brine and fish we simply don't have.

in the sea farm, large carp. in the lake, a new cat finds our resources, our swims, those precious summer waters, where the between marks space.

the train from platform; here, everything in an elevated series of windows, lighted, in yellow mirrored fashion. large tower rests on the ground. the pavement gives way, the grinding of breaks.

came across a few seats, edits, and large empty doors. there were paintings, an elderly man. a slipped space to look aside guards and walls. I can't think of how many steps it takes to escape.

platformed, clasped, we waited to circulate, encased, dined within curator's task, lips sown in a silence of those emeriti.

caustic, in bold approach, pallid lips, rouged face, nearly quaffed and ensconced. I edged the red, a rage lost in the linen weave, a time.

Stephen Motika Comments

Stephen Motika Popularity

Stephen Motika Popularity

Close
Error Success