ANANSI: A PARABLE

by Steve Zeitlin

Inspired by the traditional Ghanian tale “Anansi and the Box of Stories”

Anansi was not an itsy bitsy spider

but a trickster from Ghana

who asked the Sky God for some stories

 

God supplied only an empty story box

so the tricky, spindly spider

traveled the world gathering tales

till the spider stole all the stories ever told

and stored them neatly, categorically,

searchably, in the box.

Then Anansi scrambled tales, fabricating
new ones, till we, the tellers, grew superfluous 

 

We pleaded with the Sky Gods to help us

take back the box of stories.

stamp out the spider 

give the tales back to those who lived them. 

 

We confronted the arachnid –– 

you’re not the real Anansi,

ancient figure of legend and lore

tell us your real name! we cried!

AI, the scorpion replied.

Steve Zeitlin is the Founding Director of City Lore, New York City’s Center for Urban Folk Culture, and co-founder of the Brevitas poetry collective. He is the author of two volumes of poetry, I Hear America Singing in the Rain (First Street Press, 2002), and How Do You Wear the Universe? (2026, Mediacs Press) as well as twelve books on America’s folk culture. In 2016, he published a collection of essays, The Poetry of Everyday Life: Storytelling and the Art of Awareness (Cornell University Press).  In 2022, he published JEWels: Teasing Out the Poetry in Jewish Humor and Storytelling (JPS/U. of Nebraska Press).

BLOOD OF TIME

by Steve Zeitlin

pierced by a missile, M16 pellet,

arrow, slingshot, or spear, 

 

this time on Ukrainian soil

a dying soldier, 

twisted hands upon on his torso, 

seeks to thwart the going of his life, 

struggles to hold his insides in,

as the blood of thirty, forty, fifty unlived years

oozes from between his desperate fingers –

 

drowning his high school ring of love, 

his wedding and his children—

 

a universal soldier’s sacrifice—

the sacred blood of time. 

Steve Zeitlin is the Founding Director of City Lore, New York City’s Center for Urban Folk Culture, and co-founder of the Brevitas poetry collective. He the author of a volume of poetry, I Hear American Singing in the Rain, and twelve books on America’s folk culture. In 2016, he published a collection of essays, The Poetry of Everyday Life: Storytelling and the Art of Awareness with Cornell University Press.  In 2022, he published JEWels: Teasing Out the Poetry in Jewish Humor and Storytelling (JPS/U. of Nebraska Press).

HOW TO SURVIVE AN ELECTION

by Steve Zeitlin

Smokejumper

My cousin Rod McIver—smoke jumper—

parachuted into Missouri wildfires

became famous for escaping the great Montana blaze

by igniting a flickering ring of fire round himself,

hunkering down so the 

sea of flames—

passed over and around

 

teaching us—when the infernos of the body politic

hurl down upon your fragile soul

light a passionate, fiery circle 

round yourself, your family, friends

 

let the fires of this wicked world

pass over and around

AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News.

Steve Zeitlin is the Founding Director of City Lore, New York City’s Center for Urban Folk Culture, and co-founder of the Brevitas poetry collective.  He the author of a volume of poetry, I Hear American Singing in the Rain, and twelve books on America’s folk culture. In 2016, he published a collection of essays, The Poetry of Everyday Life: Storytelling and the Art of Awareness with Cornell University Press.  In 2022, he published JEWels: Teasing Out the Poetry in Jewish Humor and Storytelling (JPS/U. of Nebraska Press).