Mario Chard
Tupelo Press (Dorset Prize)
What is your name? they said.
I am nameless I said.
Yes they said.
—from “Renditions”
HOW IT BEGAN: I wanted to write poems about migration, war, parenthood, and childhood. But without authority beyond attention or observation, I wrote through personal implication. Migration is still thecould, this afternoon, buy the first flight out to . And that, for me, proves the myth of borders: not of sovereignty or nationality, but the myth of their permanence, their precedence. How we often confuse what was given, found, or taken with what is owed, native, or heritage. The book was a reflection of my desire to understand why.
