William O’Daly has published eight translations of the late and posthumous poetry of Pablo Neruda, as well as a chapbook of his own poems, The Whale in the Web. With coauthor Han-ping Chin, he wrote a historical novel, This Earthly Life, set during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. O’Daly lives with his wife and daughter in the Sierra Nevada foothills of California.

Photograph by Jill Engel-Cox.

Two Poems

by William O’Daly

Greeting

The sun rounds the sky,
a bulb hiding its light,
a yellow gillyflower—
blue and red and white—
more common than country,
more reliable than anthrax,
extensive as stone. Why, mad
as the west wind, do we do it?

People on couch
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