The Paris Review

Poetry Rx: There Will Never Be More of Summer Than There Is Now

In our column Poetry Rx, readers write in with a specific emotion, and our resident poets—Sarah Kay, Kaveh Akbar, and Claire Schwartz—take turns prescribing the perfect poems to match. This week, Sarah Kay is on the line.

© Ellis Rosen

Dear Poets,

I am still thinking of spring and the way rains wash away the neighborhood children’s chalk drawings. Do you have a poem for that never-ending spring? For the new opportunities I can almost taste in these upcoming months? My partner finally moving to the city where I live, a trip to Europe, a new job—is there a poem that holds all the hope I hold for the future?

Yours,
Spring Things

Dear Spring Things,

I love that you are still thinking of spring when summer is so muggy! Personally, I can’t stop sweating, and spring couldn’t feel further away. And yet I think I understand what you are looking for. I that it is an inappropriate season to be thinking of spring. I want to,” by Alex Dimitrov, which is also inappropriate, since now we are sitting squarely in July’s armpit. No matter. Alex writes,

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