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Books
  • Furious Lullaby (Crab Orchard Series in Poetry)
    Furious Lullaby (Crab Orchard Series in Poetry)
  • Names Above Houses (Crab Orchard Series in Poetry)
    Names Above Houses (Crab Orchard Series in Poetry)
  • A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry
    A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry

  • Requiem for the Orchard (Akron Series in Poetry)
    Requiem for the Orchard (Akron Series in Poetry)

Anthologies

Oliver's work can also be found in the following anthologies.

  • Tilting the Continent: Southeast Asian American Writing
    Tilting the Continent: Southeast Asian American Writing
  • Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation
    Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation
  • Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond
    Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond
  • From the Fishouse: An Anthology of Poems that Sing, Rhyme, Resound, Syncopate, Alliterate, and Just Plain Sound Great
    From the Fishouse: An Anthology of Poems that Sing, Rhyme, Resound, Syncopate, Alliterate, and Just Plain Sound Great
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Oliver de la Paz’s Requiem for the Orchard is a love letter to memory and its ability to both sustain and shatter us beyond the “dust of ourselves,/ cold, decisive, and purely from the earth.” de la Paz renders in beautiful and exacting language the tenderness and ferocity of boyhood, alongside the enduring vulnerability of parenthood.  Out of such intimate recollection a generous wisdom blossoms.   

—Jon Pineda, author of
The Translator’s Diary

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« Slight Griefs and Cherries | Main | Flamingos, Finding Form, Jake, etc. »

Farewell, Jake.

DateWednesday, July 14, 2010 at 12:58PM

Just found out that Meredith had to put Jake down. Oh, Jake. You were a good dog.

Jake:  1996-2010

 

ODE TO DOGS by Michael Meyerhofer

 

I am tired of hearing about dogs

used as metaphors for the uncivilized.

Imagine a world in which humans

 

possessed at least twenty times

as many olfactory receptors,

able to distinguish the tang of cancer

 

rising musk-like from the bedsheets

next to a smoldering ash tray,

able to detect that one drop of blood

 

in every five quarts of water,

to know what you did last night

no matter how many times

 

you soap-scrubbed the evidence.

It does not take savagery

but more love than we can muster

 

to lick the hand you've sniffed,

to love despite the perfume of sins

we wear each day like a halo.

AuthorOliver | Comment3 Comments |

Reader Comments (3)

I am so sorry.
July 14, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterJustin
aww, what a cute looking dog! RIP sry to see the bad news.
July 16, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterEmo Boy
Sorry to hear that! Hope I'm not re-opening old wounds. Being the e-dunce I am, I'm about a year late in seeing this.
May 24, 2011 | Unregistered CommenterMichael Meyerhofer

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