Sunday, August 23, 2020

AMERICAN SENTENCE / AMERICAN SENTENCING

by Erin Murphy






The boy was three and a half feet tall, his black wrists too small for handcuffs.



Author’s Note: My poem is written in the form of the 17-syllable American Sentence invented by Allen Ginsberg.


Erin Murphy’s work has appeared in The Georgia Review, The Normal School, Field, North American Review, Women’s Studies Quarterly, and elsewhere. Her eighth book of poetry is forthcoming from Salmon Poetry. She is professor of English at Penn State Altoona and serves as Poetry Editor of The Summerset Review.