“There’s something deeply fulfilling about finding an intimacy that feels safe. How does an artist have a generous heart and a fearless practice that’s also boundaried? There needs to be a kind of sacred space between the reader and the poet, for both of their sakes.” - Danika Stegeman

Danika Stegeman’s second book, Ablation, was released by 11:11 Press in November 2023. Her book Pilot (2020) was published by Spork Press. She’s a 2023 recipient of a grant from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund and recently spent a 2-week residency in Marathon, TX outside Big Bend National Park. Her website is danikastegeman.com.

Welcome to the Poets Weave. I'm Romayne Rubinas Dorsey. Danika, what poems have you brought for us today?

Heart Rate Cento

in the construction of the chest there is a heart

and I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes
its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me

I cannot heave my heart into my mouth

of the heart they say too much the heart the heart

I’m terrified at the moral apathy–the death of the
heart–which is happening here in my country

to further compromise an already compromised heart

a heart that’s full up like a landfill

deep in the heart of the land

look into the dark heart and you will see what the dark eats
other than your heart

the actual heart is an ugly machine

it doesn’t stir the heart like a true wild rose

admit that the heart, though not useless, lacks the thing needed
for some miracles

I had a friend whose heart was too heavy to hold,
yes there’s blood on the median like a boat without oars

nobody broke your heart, you broke your own

Heart Rate Variability is shaped by trauma

oh yeah I, I got a heart of darkness

won’t you feel for me from your heart

there in your heart something that’s never changing

it’s time to decide while my heart mourns

I sit heart-stricken at the bloom

in between a heart and home

today I will say my fears into a molting bag
and let them mean away in there as doom means doom
and love means love when I’m waiting here
calibrating my heart

I found your beating heart half-buried in the woods

yardsale heart just like mine

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)

crowned in our sins, velvet hearts

and you kept us awake with wolves’ teeth
sharing different heartbeats

lay your head where my heart used to be

and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh
and give you a heart of flesh

heart we will forget

some relaxed uncondescending stranger,
the heart’s release, and while the fireflies are failing
to illuminate these nightmare trees

leave my heart down by the water
------

from Ablation (4)

When I
say you, I mean
daughter. I mean reader.
I mean for you to rest in the
hollow
my heart
shapes and unshapes. The morning fog’s
half in, half out. The leaves drift
in part-circles,
undone.

A note
resounds, birdsong
you sing back to the bird.
Transmogrified, I molt into
some new
figure,
this mother, this loosening knot.
The bird’s wings spread, meadow-
blown beneath a
day moon.

You're listening to the poems of Danika Stegeman on the Poets Weave. I'm Romayne Rubinas Dorsey.