From the Desire Field

“Grief Work” by Natalie Diaz (2015)

Initially published in Poem-A-Day on Poets.org and reprinted in Diaz’s Postcolonial Love Poem (2020), “Grief Work” presents the notion that grief work—the process of dealing with one’s grief—can be done with a lover as part of love making, and this can transform the grief in each person. After lovemaking, “We are rearranged,” the speaker states. Diaz is often eclectic in her choice of sources, and in this poem she references one of the Mares of Diomedes in Greek mythology, which were a herd of man-eating, uncontrollable horses, one of which was Lampon. In this poem, Lampon is “a shining devour-horse.” The speaker identifies with it (“I, the terrible beautiful Lampon”); it resembles her identification with the Minotaur in “From the Desire Field.” Also, as in that poem, she emphasizes the color green in “Grief Work.”

“Ode to the Beloved’s Hips” by Natalie Diaz (2013)

This poem is an erotic paean to love making, presented in all its physical delight as a celebration of the lover’s hips: “O, the places I have laid them, knelt and scooped / the amber—fast honey—from their openness—.” It is the kind of poem that needs to be heard, not just read.