“In Lives, CJ Evans acutely tunes into the signals emitted from finite and infinite worlds near and far—amidst perpetual violence, wars, and ecocide. The collected signals make up a stunning language that intricately weaves the personal and the political. Lives offers us a deeply intimate and prophetic observation of the now.”
—Don Mee Choi, winner of the National Book Award for DMZ Colony
Academy of American Poets
The dandelions in the moment and then
The Adroit Journal
Agni
Alaska Quarterly Review
Boston Review
The Cortland Review
Conjunctions
Crazyhorse
An Orchard Is a Forest We Broke
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LitHub
[Pank]
Poetry Daily
Every Ending Should Make a Sound
Poetry Society of America
Poetry Northwest
Verse Daily
Virginia Quarterly Review
WHAT THE SEAS WOULD MAKE US
I don’t know how to tell you about
the rain. It falls as if all these woods
weren’t owned. It bends the arcs
of meteorites and flies, invites
uninhibited fucking on blankets of fir
needles. That night in Harlem we didn’t
kiss: this lifetime of lovely almost-but-
never pain is the rain’s. I want it to riot
at my small end, loose in the flowers
that’ll roof my grave. If we stop
with all these buildings and laptops
and flashing LEDs—all our
ceaseless wanting—this rain will
grow us a world new, naked and wild.