Bruce Bond’s two collections of poetry released by Etruscan Press are Peal (2009) and Cinder (2004). Other collections include Blind Rain (LSU Press, 2008), The Throats of Narcissus (University of Arkansas Press, 2001), Radiography (Natalie Ornish Award, BOA Editions, 1997), The Anteroom of Paradise (Colladay Award, QRL, 1991), Independence Days (R. Gross Award, Woodley Press, 1990), and four chapbooks.

Presently, Bond is Regents Professor of English at the University of North Texas and poetry editor for American Literary Review.

Find out more about Bruce and how to interact with him on his author page.

As they loaded the dead onto the gurneys

to wheel them from the university halls,

who could have predicted the startled chirping

in those pockets, the invisible bells

and tiny metal music of the phones,

in each the cheer of a voiceless song.

Pop mostly, Timberlake, Shakira, tunes

never more various now, more young,

shibboleths of what a student hears,

what chimes the dark doorway to the parent

on the line.  Who could have answered there

in proxy for the dead, received the panic

with grace, however artless, a live bird

gone still at the meeting of the strangers.