WE ARE MADE OF STAR DUST

by Daniela Gioseffi

We're made of the deaths of stars,
yet, often we don’t have the table manners
of crocodiles, a hundred of which will feed
on one hippopotamus, taking turns—
one eater at a time— while others
hold the floating prey
still as a shared table in the water,
one after the other taking turns:
bite then spin away to chew,
take hold again,
and wait another turn.

We’ve come from exploding stars,
and dream
of star wars to come

From: 
BLOOD AUTUMN: New & Selected Poems (VIA Folios/ Bordighera Press, at The City U. of NY




Daniela Gioseffi's picture

ABOUT THE POET ~
Daniela Gioseffi is an American Book award-winning author of fourteen books of poetry and prose. WOMEN ON WAR: INTERNATIONAL WRITINGS (Simon & Schuster, 1988, & The Feminist Press: NY, 2003), and ON PREJUDICE; A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE (Anchor/Doubleday, 1993) are two World Peace Award winning compendiums of poetry and prose edited and introduced by Gioseffi and presented at the U.N. Daniela taught at the City U of NY, Pace U., NYU, LIU, and lectured throughout the USA. She’s won two grant awards in poetry from The NY State Council for the Arts; a Lifetime Achievement Award from The Association of Italian American Educators, 2003; a New York State OSIA Literary Award, 2008; and The John Ciardi Award for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry, 2007. She presented her work on National Public Radio in the US, and on the BBC throughout the UK. Her verse was etched in marble on a wall of New York’s PENN Station in 2002. Daniela edits www.PoetsUSA.com. Her newest book is a biographical novel: WILD NIGHTS, WILD NIGHTS: THE STORY OF EMILY DICKINSON'S MASTER (Plain View Press, 2010.) with a non-fiction afterword upon which the novel is based. She’s with the Emily Dickinson’s Scholars Registry. Her latest book of poetry is BLOOD AUTUMN: NEW & SELECTED POEMS, 2007, VIA FOLIOS/ Bordighera Press, at The City U. of NY. Her work has appeared in innumerable periodicals from THE PARIS REVIEW to VIA, POETRY EAST, CHOICE, and THE NATION. She has published six books of poetry, the first with BOA Editions, 1977 was titled EGGS IN THE LAKE, and contained poems that won a NY State Council for the Arts, National Endowment grant award. She has read her work widely throughout the USA and Europe. Her work has been translated in Italian, Spanish, Japanese, German, and Serbo Croation among other languages, and published in Europe from Vienna to London, and in Japan. She has written many poetry book reviews for varied publications and published two novels and a book of short stories, as well as poetry in many anthologies from Oxford U. Press, to Viking: NY. More information can be found at PEN AMERICAN CENTER's website:Daniela Gioseffi: PEN AMERICAN CENTER Webpage: http://www.pen.org/MemberProfile.php/prmProfileID/19901, Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniela_Gioseffi, Editor/ Publisher http://www.PoetsUSA.com/, The Poet and the Poem, Library of Congress Radio Show Webcast: Scroll down at: http://www.loc.gov/poetry/poetpoem.html, and many other sites on the internet.


Last updated May 23, 2011