Niki Koulouris, Poet.

A dear friend of mine, Niki Koulouris, is riding high these days. At the Housing Works Bookstore Café in New York City last night, Koulouris was joined by fellow writers Betsy Andrews and Jen Coleman for a reading entitled Oceans of Poets. Each read from their new book of poetry about the sea. And it did not go unmentioned in The New Yorker's Above and Beyond section...

Koulouris' first collection, The sea with no one in it, takes her readers on a journey that weaves the distant ocean with both the abstract and familiar of our urban lives. The Canadian-Australian poet's work is poignantly visual, which is why I'm so drawn to it. I hope you also find much to discover in her work.

Her next reading, at the 100 Thousand Poets for Change event in Toronto, takes place at the Black Swan Tavern on Saturday, September 27th at 7:00-11:00pm.

Below are two poems from her book:

Today of all days 

this is the sea with no one in it 

is this all it will be

unable to dye all it touches 

in primitive ink 

 

what could you give the sea 

but your stripes,

since you ask,

your war paint, your blindfolds 

your appetite for westerns

in exchange for waves

as wide as trains

from the next frontier.

 

(for Cézanne) 

If anything

he must have kept his onions

in a safe

but I think of Cézanne’s apples, 

peaches, pears

turning like

doorknobs

in a house full of

surprises 

 

restless fruit 

tuned at high noon

by the grocer's scales

 

oranges on togas 

on tables, 

still-blooded, spared.