Amanda Reavey

CONTACT:
Email: ajreavey@gmail.com
Website: tabipopoetry.com

BIO:
Amanda Ngoho Reavey is an Emeritus Poetry Fellow at Black Earth Institute and the author of Marilyn, which won the 2017 Best Book Award in Poetry from the Association for Asian American Studies. She holds an MFA in Writing & Poetics from Naropa University. She organizes the Tabi Po! Poetry Series and Open Mic at County Clare Irish Pub every third Sunday of the month.

PUBLICATIONS:
Marilyn (The Operating System, 2015), available on Amazon.

Poetry

Poem for the End of the World

after Czeław Milosz

When the world ends
people may pillage, hoard food
and water everywhere
except here
at the end of the world
where the sky meets the sea.

Here, when the world ends,
the sun will blaze and smile the way
my grandfather sat up straight
and asked for food the day
before he died.

Here, when the world ends,
the Badjao will sing canticles,
boys will drink Coke from glass bottles,
and bet on fighting cocks.

Here, when the world ends,
Trappist monks will exit seclusion
and walk the dirt road to Sibunag,
offering absolutions.

Here, when the world ends,
I’ll put on my sadok and guide the carabao
through oil-mud to prepare for rice fields,
hoping my son will burn the land and till
(until)
the world ends.