Click here to listen to Alexandra Teague read this poem. That summer, she had a student who was obsessed with the order of adjectives. A soldier in the South Vietnamese army, he had been taken ...

The poem, titled “how many of us have them ... I’d like to invent or order up new adjectives to describe the startling originality and ambition of Smith’s work. I’d like to unwrap ...

What does it want to do? Where does it want to go? Some descriptive words can help make the meaning of a poem clear. Words that will help those listening to my poem know exactly what I mean.