DAVID HADBAWNIK Damage
from the author of Holy Sonnets to Orpheus and Other Poems
I used to care about things like sunsets
and politics and winning but now I
know it’s all bunk nobody wins nothing
is worth fighting for we’re plunged into this
struggle against our will we force ourselves
smaller and the little words carry us
forward on breath in time as song into
the gloomy airs of winter the ice gray
with devastation of skidding right off
having to wait for to beg for help not
being self-sufficient but opening
like a wound weeping puss and infection
to be buried at last but no to be
dug up born again whether we want to
DAVID HADBAWNIK
Damage
Poetry. Chapbook.
ISBN: 978-1-989355-88-6
FALL 2026 Preorder NOW
Selected by Dale Martin Smith for knife | fork | book
Part of KFB 10th Anniversary Season 4ertile Series.
Cover: Kirby
Design/layout: R. Kolewe
Printed at Coach House [Toronto] by John De Jesus
DAVID HADBAWNIK is a poet, translator, medieval scholar, and an editor, with Chris Vitiello, of Polis Press. Books include a translation of the Aeneid (Shearsman, 2023); an edited volume, Postmodern Poetry and Queer Medievalisms (Medieval Institute Publications, 2022); and a book of poetry, Holy Sonnets to Orpheus and Other Poems (Delete Press, 2018). He currently lives in the Minneapolis area with his wife and son.