Witness Magazine

THE SHAFT

By
Poetry•Vol. 33 No. 3

by Angelo Ligori

“We—are the birds—that stay.”
—Emily Dickinson

I. A MINOR
poet

word
canaries—
small

makeshift
cages
set

long
tunnels—
edge

working
split

rock
to pitch

black
wheezing
draft

 

II. DEEPMIND
passage

yields: a
pick

axe
swinging
we—

—are the
words—

that stay
broken
living

through
birds

dying
measures

wings
beating
air

heavy—
beak

between
bars

woodworn
ash

 

III. CAVEAT
O red
bird

wanes
on one
side

eye
popping
stiff

pupils
churn
to cloud:

wrapping
pearls

 

 

Angelo Ligori is from the Midwest, where he works in the concrete industry and teaches composition part-time. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and holds a BA in Creative Writing with a Teaching Artist minor from Columbia College Chicago.

 

Witness blends the features of a literary and an issue-oriented magazine to highlight the role of the modern writer as witness to his or her times. Launched in Detroit in 1987, the magazine is best known for showcasing work that defines its historical moment; special issues have focused on political oppression, religion, the natural world, crime, aging, civil rights, love, ethnic America, and exile. The issues “New Nature Writing,” “The Sixties,” “Sports in America,” and “The Best of Witness, 1987 – 2004” eventually appeared as university press anthologies. In 2007, Witness moved to Black Mountain Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The magazine publishes one print issue and one online issue a year, and increasingly seeks out work that contextualizes the American experience by highlighting issues of global concern.