The world could always use a little more poetry. Please enjoy this piece by the award-winning poet Jeremy Schmidt as much as we do.

-The Gardener

Colorways

So far as a sofa is soft
skin no matter how distant

is sway. So long as near-silk and

reduction run over it, nightbaking
nights are clear sky.

So near yet so sharp sits that

unblue despite all sifted
assurances, so if the simplest

situation is this where everything is

spilling over in every direction
look to the violet bedding

down at our feet. That unnameable tree.

So there, the bark torn away
from anything less than an anthem

to rope in these spaces, the want

of unsayings when you sense so to
speak that summer’s most coveted

color is me. So help us to gather

each leafy instant while letting
some fair number fall since so

much of such holding pales

to acceptance which you can’t
just let happen. So be it.

ABOUT THE POET

JEREMY SCHMIDT IS A POET AND TEACHER AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO.

HIS WRITING HAS APPEARED IN THE BELIEVER, BOSTON REVIEW, LA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND LANA TURNER, AND A FEW OF HIS POEMS WERE SELECTED BY JOHN ASHBERY FOR THE DISCOVERY PRIZE.

HE GREW UP ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF CHICAGO, TAUGHT ENGLISH IN SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA, AND EARNED HIS PHD FROM UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES.