Trio House Press
publishing distinct voices in poetry
since 2012

Bone Music by Stephen Cramer
Winner of the 2015 Louise Bogan Award selected by Kimiko Hahn
Stephen Cramer's first book of poems, Shiva's Drum, was selected for the National Poetry Series and published by University of Illinois Press. From the Hip, which follows the history of hip hop in a series of 56 sonnets, came out in 2014 from Wind Ridge Press. His work has appeared in journals such as The American Poetry Review, African American Review, The Yale Review, Harvard Review, and Hayden's Ferry Review. An Assistant Poetry Editor at Green Mountains Review, he teaches writing and literature at the University of Vermont and lives with his wife and daughter in Burlington, Vermont.

Rising Sonnet for Miles

St. Louis, ’44: Miles was 18,

fresh out of high school, & seeing Bird

 

& Diz on one stage was a daydream

to rival his most carnal. When he heard

 

those escalating exchanges, the opposite

of gravity, it was like the first time

 

he rode an elevator: when Diz hit

floor three, Miles’ heart filled his shoes. As they climbed,

 

he imagined smashing through the ceiling

to cruise among stars beyond the Milky Way,

 

that spill of pearls below. The greatest feeling

I ever had in my life, he’d say,

 

then, with a smirk, with my clothes on, that is—

St. Louis, ’44: Bird and Diz.

 

Originally published in Fogged Clarity