Twentieth-Century Adam and Eve

A POEM

By Gwendolyn C. Carr | November 1983

As aliens yearn

For the native land.

We still return

To the garden —

Taste ancient fruit,

Graft seasoned sins

Onto new generations.

What Is the Purpose of Poetry?

Poetry was once understood to be an anthropological episteme, a way of knowing, if only through a glass darkly.

Possessed

My God, I’m grieved to say it is not true:

Not true I desire naught…

To Phoebe*

Phoebe,

Gentle handmaid

Of us all,

Who assisted Paul

And others

Of the early church,

…