Some of the images in “Ask for Nothing” were adapted from Antonio Machado’s poem “Fields of Soria.”
I owe the word “Magpiety” to Czesław Miłosz. See his poem of the same name.
The poet referred to in “Winter Words, Manhattan” is Thomas Hardy, whose final book of verse, Winter Words, was published posthumously.
The title of the poem “My Brother Abel, the Wounded” is an adaptation of the opening of the poem “Abel” by Demetrios Capetanakis, a Greek poet who wrote in English.
MY MOTHER WITH PURSE THE SUMMER THEY MURDERED THE SPANISH POET
The man who appears in the penultimate stanza of “My Mother with Purse the Summer They Murdered the Spanish Poet” is García Lorca, who was assassinated in August of 1936.
MY FATHER WITH CIGARETTE TWELVE YEARS BEFORE THE NAZIS COULD BREAK HIS HEART
The poem “My Father with Cigarette Twelve Years Before the Nazis Could Break His Heart” takes place in 1933. It was inspired by a work of the American painter Harry Lieberman.