In this yellow season
the first of spring
the road from Millerton winds
and winds, an expanse of rolling hills,
fields beautiful even in their bareness
horses lithe and leaning
on gentrified lands bound in clean white fences
neighbored by barnless silos wound in vines and time
nothing left but the certain speaking of
cold mornings and warm farmers’ hands
a second pot of coffee still on the stove
And as I come around another bend
and top a hard hill
I find elation and sundown in my eyes
flickering through the trees
more certain speaking I can’t yet understand
Allen Shadow is a novelist, fiction writer and poet. His first novel, “Hell City,” was published in 2012 by Blue City Media. Kirkus Reviews called it “A striking read that will leave you looking around the corner in fear...”
His poetry has been published widely in the small press, including two chapbooks; the latest: “America, I’ll Have My Way With You” (Casa del Pueblo Press, Pueblo, Colorado, 2015). Billy Collins has called his work "Engaging," while Library Journal has cited it for "startling imagery.” In 2018, he was selected as a finalist in both The Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry and the Alexandria Quarterly Summer Poetry Contest. His writing has also appeared in The New York Times, including a piece that was part of the series “Best of The New York Times 2015.”
In addition, he was the recipient of a literary grant from the New York State Council on the Arts, was co-editor of a literary magazine for the Greene County Council on the Arts, in New York, and was director of several funded reading-series that included writers such as Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Denise Levertov and Robert Creeley. He is also a founding member of the Hudson Valley Writers Guild.
Shadow earned a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Lehman College, studying with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet James Wright and novelist Jerome Charyn.