Paul Nemser

Paul Nemser’s first books of poems, Taurus, won the New American Poetry Prize.

Poem: ‘Mitte’

Paul Nemser, 19 May 2016

By the time the company reconfigured the work plan, I was too old to use any of my skills, But I went along looking for another pile of trinkets, figuring my pockets were hardly full.

When we got to Berlin, the streets were so torn up that the night was a stumble through a coal pit, the holes leading only to holes.

I fumbled to repair an underground switch which, no matter what you...

Poem: ‘Border’

Paul Nemser, 27 September 2018

A girl who slept in a truck tyre and walked a year of miles was driven back down through dry forests on a small-eyed bus with drooping heads – to no rooms for a child, but the murderers were there, ones with fingers, ones with lips, the spiny-back lizard who killed her brother after Mama ran away like an angel without wings. ‘I mean to find your father’ – did the girl...

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