Philly Poetry Chapbook Review is pleased to feature Angela Siew’s poem “Caro M.” as our second featured chapbook poem of Issue 7: Winter 2025. You can find more poetry in their chapbook, Coming Home, now available from CutBank.
Caro M.
After Li-Young Lee
I.
I’ve never written a sonnet
for you for anyone
because I’m a poet
who can’t write sonnets
and I’m a woman
who doesn’t know
how to love a man
who loves her
I wish I believed in magic
the moon so large in the sky
it follows us
II.
In the town in which I love you
we visit your sister’s house
sit on the terrace look out the arches
as she stretches out on the divano
We wait for la luna rossa
the dusty moon
When it doesn’t come
your sister and I walk to the backyard
the white dog ahead
sniffing the darkness
She climbs a short ladder to see
beyond the terra cotta roofs
I’ve never been here before, here
where her lithe body unfolds
shadow against blacker sky
III.
The city in which I love you
is being constantly built
I am kind and you are forgiving
in this city of waterways
We arrive by train to a collection of islands
surrounded by a lagoon
the light murky blue touches a darker blue
my head on your shoulder
you remark how marvelous this is
a place we are always arriving to
the sum of all the places we’ve visited
for the first time
About the Poem
Li-Young Lee is one of my favorite poets—and to use the terms of my most influential teachers—a gateway poet, a poetry crush.
So I feel it is bold to write a poem after his work. I wrote this poem after the title of one of his poetry collections, The City In Which I Love You. The poem takes place in Tuscany in the second section and in Venice in the third.
I was intrigued by the idea of how love/other feelings can change from place to place and how place affects those feelings. In this poem, I was also interested in the breath of a shorter line and how spacing can enhance this for the reader.
Author Bio
Angela Siew is a multilingual poet with a BA from Brown University and an MFA from Emerson College. She was most recently a Peter Taylor Fellow for the 2023 Kenyon Review Writers Workshop and an Administrative Staff Scholar for the 2023 & 2024 Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. She has also received support from the City of Boston and the Community of Writers Poetry Workshop. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Salamander, Meridian, and LEON Literary Review, among others. A chapbook, Coming Home, is available from Cut Bank (University of Montana). A former private tutor and English language teacher, she has also taught overseas in Chile and Italy. She currently teaches online poetry workshops for Grub Street and the International Women’s Writing Guild.
From Coming Home
Angela Siew’s poems are both economical and rich, gentle and urgent. She captures the deep love among generations and her place in their tradition. As family members age and confront mortality, the speaker of these poems deals with her uneasy position as conduit between the long past and the immediate present. Coming Home is a powerful and moving collection. -John Skoyles, Ploughshares Poetry Editor & Author of Suddenly It’s Evening: Selected Poems
Contents
Book Excerpt: Further Thought by Rae Armantrout
Read the featured Excerpt Poem of the Month for January 2025, “Further Thought” from Go Figure by Rae Armantrout, along with a few words from the poet.
Read five poems by poet A.L. Nielsen, our first biweekly poet of the Winter 2025 issue, along with a few words about the poem “When We Walked”.
Chapbook Poem: The Poem as an Act of Betrayal by Benjamin S. Grossberg
Read the featured Chapbook Poem of the Month for January 2025, “The Poem as an Act of Betrayal” from As Are Right Fit by Benjamin S. Grossberg, along with a few words from the poet.
Jan. ‘25: Year One: What worked, what didn’t, and what to expect
Editor Aiden Hunt looks back at our first year and discusses changes to Philly Poetry Chapbook Review in 2025.
Three Poems by Shelli Rottschafer
Read three poems by poet Shelli Rottschafer, our second biweekly poet of the Winter 2025 issue, along with a few words about the poem “Because We Remember.”
Dancing With the Dead: On Ragnarök at the Father-Daughter Dance by Todd Dillard
“Todd Dillard successfully transgresses the unspoken cultural embargo on work that grapples with life during the COVID-19 pandemic in his new chapbook, Ragnarök at the Father-Daughter Dance.”
Read three poems by poet Wendell Hawken, our third biweekly poet of the Winter 2025 issue, along with a few words about the poem “First Hurt”.
Book Excerpt: Slow Chalk by Elaine Equi
Read the featured Excerpt Poem of the Month for February 2025, “Slow Chalk” from Out of the Blank by Elaine Equi, along with a few words from the poet.
Chapbook Poem: Caro M. by Angela Siew
Read the featured Chapbook Poem of the Month for February 2025, “Caro M.” from Coming Home by Angela Siew, along with a few words from the poet.
Read four poems by poet Natalie Marino, our fourth biweekly poet of the Winter 2025 issue.
A Conversation with Kate Colby
Poet Kate Colby discusses her latest chapbook, ThingKing, her creative writing practices, and her penchant for poetry chapbooks with PCR Editor Aiden Hunt in this interview piece.