The Reading Series: Zachary Pace's 'The Lovers'

Zachary Pace's poem moves forward quickly because it only rests on one period. The incorporation of m-dashes, commas, line breaks, and parentheses create necessary pauses (breaks for both the reader and the poet).
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Zachary Pace's poem moves forward quickly because it only rests on one period. The incorporation of m-dashes, commas, line breaks, and parentheses create necessary pauses (breaks for both the reader and the poet). The lovers are simultaneously bound and separated by a space between them, which Pace calls "an intruder." Thankfully, the third-party between us and this poem is Pace's voice, which is comforting and seemingly ubiquitous. Although this interaction, this observation, this catalogue of desires experienced are sublimely real, it's important that the physical absence between the poet and the poem remain unchanged. Pace's voice remains the force that keeps us in awe.

Zachary Pace lives in Brooklyn.

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