ROBERT FANNING

FALL/WINTER 2022 ISSUE #05 POET

Robert Fanning (he/him/his) is the author of four full-length collections, Severance, Our Sudden Museum, American Prophet, and The Seed Thieves, as well as two chapbooks, Sheet Music and Old Bright Wheel. His poems have been published by Poetry, Ploughshares, Shenandoah, Gulf Coast, Waxwing, THRUSH, and many other journals. A Professor of English/Creative Writing at Central Michigan University, he is the Founder/Director of PEN/INSULA, an online resource for Michigan poets, and the Founder/Facilitator of the Wellspring Literary Series, where he lives in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan.

jökull // glacier

You may not see me now, but when I’m gone, you’ll know me by my work.
My icetongue etchings, my ancient face of ash and ages. In sleepless nights
I’ve engraved you. Watched you from the bottomless, ice-eyed glass of
mirrors. Carved craggy hurtpaths into your jagged rift of a heart. There’s
a piece of work. You know my language. It’s a grind, how I move you.
I know. How my slow blade whets your peak. What you fear—the thunderous
groan and ache of my making—made you. I am ljóðskáld, nationmaker.
Look around my country, stranger, as I melt. Stand inside the poem you are.