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In Anne Carson's novel-in-verse, AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF RED, Carson bases her lead character, Geryon, on a red winged monster from the writing of Greek poet Stesichoros, who was born about 650 B.C. In Stesichoros's version of Geryon's tale, Herakles kills Geryon and steals his cattle. In Carson's version, Herakles breaks Geryon's heart, and then they meet again in South America. Carson introduces us to our winged red monster as a child... ***************************************
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Today's poem is by Irving Feldman, from his COLLECTED POEMS 1954-2004.
Information about voting for the third Poem-of-the-Week and entering the Poetry in the World contest follows.
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The Secret Work Nadezhda Mandelstam has told the story. In Strunino, after her husband's arrest, working the night shift in a textile factory, she runs, sleepless and distraught, among the machines, chanting his forbidden poems to herself to preserve them. And so for twenty-five years in Perm, in Moscow, in Voronezh, Leningrad, Ulyanovsk, Samatikha... A man with chills hugs himself, rejoicing in his fever. She, the frozen century's daugher, rejoices in her secret, hugs to herself the prophet hiding in her breath, the infant she keeps close, safe, swaddled, speaking. She covers over, makes him smaller, safer, no bigger than a seed, a spark—search where they will, they will not find him here, yet here he is, a little voice praying, an enormous voice prophesying, this live coal held on her tongue burning behind clenched teeth. To herself, in herself, over and over, what must not be said aloud, not written down, not whispered in corners or left to be smelled out clotting at the ends of broken phrases ...the poems of Mandelstam going out in Siberia's night.
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************************************************** From COLLECTED POEMS 1954-2004 by Irving Feldman. Copyright © 2004 by Irving Feldman. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher. ************************************************** Related links:  About COLLECTED POEMS 1954-2004:http://www.randomhouse.com/schocken/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=0805242295 
About Irving Feldman:http://www.randomhouse.com/schocken/catalog/results2.pperl?authorid=58039
************************************************** POEM-OF-THE-WEEK:
For the remainder of National Poetry Month, we invite you to send us photos and descriptions of how you've seen poetry celebrated out in the real world. If you are a bookseller, send in images of your in-store display. If you admire the display in your favorite bookstore, send us photos of what they did. Teachers, show us a poetry bulletin board you created. Find poetry broadsides hanging on the wall in a library. Have you found a new poetry Web site that you love? Send us the link. If you hang our poems from string in trees outside your house, make poetry kites, or serve your meals out of poetry paper plates, let us know. Surprise us. Whatever you find or choose to do, let us know about it. We will pick the five most creative tributes to poetry and post them on the Borzoi Reader. Winners will receive five books of poetry from Knopf.
View the official rules here: **************************************************
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