Welcome to “Poetry at The Arts Fuse.” A new poem every Thursday

UNCOUNTED MULTITUDES

unreasoning

unalloyed

unheard
that morning

unmarred
for the moment

the unabashedly
unambiguous

unsaid
in the interest of
underscoring

unsigned
as if
we should know
who’d pen
something like this

undone
by the events
in question

uncovering everything
the mechanism
was meant
to mask

undressed
for success

simply untold

the undead
who would gladly
leave us alone

unseasoned
at least
by any experience

unthinking
as usual

Michael Gottlieb, the author of two dozen books, is a first-generation Language poet. Back in the Seventies he helped edit one of its seminal magazines, Roof. His most recent books are Selected Poems (2021), Collected Essays (2023) and Collected Memoirs (2023), all from Chax Books, in a uniform edition. His next book, excerpted here, will be Next! – New Poems, also from Chax, in matching format, will be published in December. He’s living these days in Northwest Connecticut and co-curates the OtherWords reading series in Great Barrington, MA.

Note: Hey poets! We seek submissions of excellent poetry from across the length and breadth of contemporary poetics. See submission guidelines here. The arbiter of the feature is the magazine’s poetry editor, John Mulrooney.

— Arts Fuse editor Bill Marx