Home | Gabriel Spera

Poems & Poetry
News & Info

It is difficult to get the news from poems…

Books

The Standing Wave

The Standing Wave

HarperCollins, 2002

The Rigid Body

The Rigid Body

Ashland Poetry Press, 2012

Selected Poems

Throat

Throat

A scratch, an itch, a chalky tickle no measure
of muffled coughing will dispel, a hairline sliver
of trout bone sewn within his throat, a growing pressure…

Field outside the town

In a Field Outside the Town

Three days later, Suljic was finally given a drink
of water and marched with a dozen other men
onto a small livery truck, one of two, fenced…

Finches

Scratch

They flock to me, the finches, when I go
outside to scatter seed like the grace
of angels on the stubbled lawn, erased…

Hopeless Ends

The Hopeless Ends

Someone who loved me let a pet store clerk
put a spider on her palm, a leggy
bonbon, a shy confection—the bitter…

Sonnet

Sonnet (With Children)

My love is like a deep and placid lake…
Not now, sweetie, Daddy's busy, OK?
OK: my love's a deep and peaceful lake…

Studies for a Portrait

Studies for a Portrait

Consider her ability to sleep:
in cars on any errand lasting more
than two or three short miles; at home, slunk deep…

Leopard

Leopard

First warm Saturday of Spring, and the city pier
is a hazard of whizzing hooks and lines, a hatchery
of white ten-gallon paint tubs aslosh with the rare…

Sumo

Sumo

Such a figure must confound and torment
the shrewdest tailor. Better simply to go swaddled
in next to nothing, a loin cloth, a bath garment…

Atlas

Atlas

My world has grown so small I can hardly bear it.
Tragic, to think what once these hands achieved,
the oceans overthrown, the mountains heaved…

Masterful

Masterful

Though it's a city job, Carlos isn't wearing
his orange vest and yellow hardhat,
but clomps around in tan ranchero hat…

My Ex

My Ex-Husband

That's my ex-husband pictured on the shelf,
Smiling as if in love. I took it myself
With his Leica, and stuck it in that frame…

Olive

The Mission Olive

It's time, the day says, as it
always does, the coming rains
will rake them from the tree…

Scratch

Scratch

They flock to me, the finches, when I go
outside to scatter seed like the grace
of angels on the stubbled lawn, erased…

Romas

Romas

"Kill these yellowjackets," he says, gesturing
to the winged shards of flint and gold converging
on the edge of the folding table all but…

Bluejay

Grubbing

The jay's up early, and attacks the lawn
with something of that fervor and despair
of one whose keys are not where they always are…

Biography

Gabriel Spera has published two collections of poetry. His first, The Standing Wave, was published by Harper Collins (New York) as part of the 2002 National Poetry Series. The book also received the 2004 Literary Book Award for Poetry from PEN USA-West. His second, The Rigid Body, was awarded the 2011 Richard Snyder prize from Ashland Poetry Press. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the City of Los Angeles. He was also awarded the Marica and Jan Vilcek Prize for Poetry from the Bellevue Literary Review. He lives in Los Angeles.

News & Notes

New work out now in the latest issue of Able Muse.

More work due out soon in the October 2019 issue of Ambit.

More work forthcoming in The Raintown Review.

New work forthcoming in the Spring, 2020, issue of Nimrod International Journal.