Paul Hostovsky’s Comments

The first thing that occurs to me to say about these poems is that I guess I’ve been into one-word titles lately.

“Woo” was written after reading Ana Blandiana’s beautiful love poem, “Magic Spell of Rain.”

“Torso” is playing with itself, playing with its own shape, playing with lust but also praising the beauty of the human form.

“Travelogue” is another poem about hands. I have this thing about hands. Maybe it comes from being a sign language interpreter. Or maybe me being a sign language interpreter came from this thing I have about hands.

“Happiness” actually started out as a happy birthday poem for a friend, but ended up as a kind of happy divorce poem for, well, myself.

“Evil,” which sort of pulls together all of the above—love in the hands of signing primates, so to speak—I’ll let speak for itself. Except to say that I carried around the first line in my head for a long time before coming up with the body of the poem to attach it to.