Leslie Monsour

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Colorless, Odorless, Tasteless

The term “inert” applies to noble gases.
It’s also aptly said of noble classes.

“Poems today need urgency to keep the reader from leaving the room.”

—A workshop instructor

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Not now, I’ve really got to run.
Then here’s another thing to make you stay:
Your zip’s undone.

Leslie Monsour has received five Pushcart Prize nominations and an NEA fellowship. A native of Hollywood, California, she grew up in Mexico City, Chicago, and Panama and is the author of The Alarming Beauty of the Sky (2006) and The House Sitter (2011). Her poems, essays, and translations have appeared most recently in Literary Matters and The Dark Horse. She resides in Laurel Canyon in the Hollywood Hills, where the Laurel Canyon Association has appointed her Poet Laureate, because it’s high time and redundant.