Rise Up Review
Donna Hilbert was born in the Red River Valley of Oklahoma near the Texas border, but has spent most of her life in Southern California. She is a graduate of California State University, Long Beach. Her latest book is The Congress of Luminous Bodies, Aortic Books, 2013. The Green Season, World Parade Books, is now available in a new, expanded second edition. Other books include Traveler in Paradise: New and Selected Poems, PEARL Editions, 2004; Transforming Matter, PEARL 2000; Feathers and Dust, Deep Red and Mansions, all from Event Horizon Press. In 1994 she won the Staple First Edition writing award resulting in the publication in England of the short story collection, Women who Make Money and the Men Who Love Them. Her Greatest Hits chapbook, which includes her most anthologized poems from 1989-2000, is available from Pudding House.
Philosophy
The British Prime Minister
fucks a pig in the first episode
of “The Black Mirror”
on prime-time TV, just as the terrorists
demanded, to save the princess
whom they’d kidnapped
before the first frame.
As incentive, they’ve presented
her severed finger in a box to prove
they’re serious. Mean business.
Sorry to spoil it for you.
But, alas, all plots are spoiled
in this life slipping fast past satire
into theater beyond absurd.
What role would suit you to perform?
Terrorist? Princess? PM? Pig?
Me, I choose to play non-contemplating pig,
happy and innocent in my muck
until evil overtakes me from behind.
—Donna Hilbert
@riseupreview 2017
