My Ariel

Where were you when you first read Ariel? Who were you? What has changed in your life? In the lives of women? In My Ariel, Sina Queyras reimagines and engages directly with one of the iconic texts of the twentieth century, exploring and exploding the cultural norms and poetic forms and procedures that frame and contain the lives of women.
Death perfects nada.
The body wears no smile, nothing

Is accomplished. Any Greek allusion
Is Tragic; the folds

Of your skin deepen and freeze.
Your marble feet

Are not heavy with meaning,
Your hands

Will never hold, or soothe.
Don't bother cutting out the heart,

It was long broke.
What betrayals

Were coiled like serpents
In your ovaries? I despise a viper,

The viper tries but the viper
Lies.
Sina Queyras was born in Manitoba and grew up on the road in western Canada. She has since lived in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, New York, Philadelphia, and Calgary. Most recently, she is the author of the poetry collection MxT, which received the QWF Award for poetry, the Pat Lowther Award, and the ReLit award for poetry. She has taught creative writing at Rutgers, Haverford, and Concordia University in Montreal, where she currently lives.