Ross White's poem “Crossing” in the May 2025 issue of Poetry was about 15 pages into the galleys of the issue, which I was reading at my mom's hospital bedside as she lay sleeping. I was enjoying the draft, but I was also thinking about what the cover was going to be.
“Crossing” did the thing you always hope a poem might do as you embark upon it. It found me, viscerrally, right where I was—days away from seeing my mother slip away from our lives. It gave me comfort, and it startled me. It began:
“I’m not the first man to lose his father
slowly, not the first to wonder
when I walk in the room if the waterly light
in his eyes means son or stranger.
Some days, I think he’s lashed to a mast
only he can see, trapped there to weather
the final season without giving in
to its song. Some days, he points at the clock
like he’s waiting for a meeting at the bank.”
Her eyes. When we came to the hospital, she was absolutely bewildered. She was in shock, she was scared. As things progressed, she could hardly keep her red eyes open. And then she was gone.
A few years back, Michael Beirut and Pentagram devised a system for Poetry's covers that puts an emphasis on typography as a vehicle for narrative. This triptych of sorts is dedicated to my mom, an English teacher and poetry fanatic. Her obituary remarked of her love for Yves Klein blue, which we integrated into the interior spread. And that last "Y" glyph forms an abstract tear, and a blue "J" to honor her memory.
Dip pen and dye-colorant ink from Birmingham Pen Co.
- Illustrator and Designer
- Mike Renaud
