Ars Poetica
(after Archibald MacLeish)
A poem should hurt
leave a bruise
hand-shaped across
your cheek, make you taste a tinge
of blood on your lips. Poems
honest enough, tear delicate
skin between your thighs
as you bear down on words
coming to life, gasping
for breath and warmth and find
cold light, rough cotton instead.
Stanzas hold no room
for hiding, haunt you, trapped
in someone else's story, you break
your knuckles and nails, dig
under stone walls for more air.
Poetry should be mean, but not
until it stings like bees
will it force you to remember
what it feels like to inhale.
Lisa Marie Rhody is deputy director of Digital Initiatives and a faculty member in the Comparative Literature, Data Analysis and Visualization, Digital Humanities, Interactive Technology & Pedagogy, and Liberal Studies programs at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her co-edited collection of essays Feminist Digital Humanities: Intersections in Practice (2025) was published by the University of Illinois Press. She lives in New Jersey with her husband, daughters, and dogs.