Danyen Powell
Danyen Powell was born and raised
in Sacramento,
California. His work has been published in Brevities,
The Poets’ Guild, Poetry Depth Quarterly (PDQ),
Chrysanthemum, Rattlesnake Review, and other
publications, including The Sacramento Anthology:
One Hundred Poems (Sacramento Poet Laureate
Program, 2001); Poets’ Dinner Contest Anthology,
1998 (after he won a First Place at the Poets’ Dinner
Contest); and Remembering (Poets’ Dinner Contest
Anthology, 2001, after his Pantoum of the Oncology
Ward won the Grand Prize). In addition, he was
Featured Poet in Pudding Magazine #38 (1998).
 Danyen
has also been the facilitator for the
Sacramento Poetry Center’s weekly poetry workshop
for the past five years. He currently lives with his wife,
Betsy, in Davis, California and can be reached at
dpowell2@earthlink.net.
Danyen Powell builds a secret garden by words, which is the
labyrinth of unknown human darkness. He tries to find the
way out with great passion, but meanwhile he indulges in details
of the darkness leading him to be lost. We will explore
complexity in his almost minimized forms.
- Bei
Dao
Danyen Powell Poems
WORMWOOD
the encapsulated-self
a beginning an end
a population of plagues
how we long to be
individual
more than dust—holes
in a plank
inhabitants
of a measuring stick
a lost harmonic
brittle wind...
we ate and ate—wormwood
like recorded history
layer upon layer crisscross
and overlap—
the earth compresses
and compresses—
our very molecules become
strata...
wormwood—
our manmade lives—some
like cathedrals
—others
graves clawed by hand
MARINA
boats scattered
broken now vessels for weeds
a dock on stilts
walks out over the sand
sand mounded by an hourglass again and again
as the wind plays a halyard
frayed and pulled by the earth at one end at the other end sky
where a black palm tree leans against the sun
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