Ode to the Analog Age
Praise the newspaper
tossed each morning
by a boy on a bicycle,
ink of newsprint,
thinness of paper.
Praise phone booths
where we waited in line
and paid with quarters,
praise the long cord
and rotary dialing.
Praise the typewriter
and white-out,
the encyclopedia
in 20 volumes.
Praise dipping pen in ink,
the flourish of handwriting,
perfumed stationery,
the stamp and the post office,
waiting days or weeks
for a response.
Praise the library of books,
the card catalog and microfiche,
a place of hush.
Praise the record player,
placing the needle by hand
into just the right groove.
Praise paper maps,
finding streets by letter and number,
finger tracing square by square.
Praise knocking on doors
to visit neighbors.
Praise the mystery.
Praise the tactile.
Contours
I run from the house
then feel lost and seek it again
comfort of home
the one place I know
I seek smooth waters
tilled earth
a rhythm to the day
century-old trunks
thick bark to lean on
a cradle
a hammock
a place of stillness
crevice to call my own
contours to hold me
Yvette Neisser is an award-winning poet, Spanish translator, and founder of the DC-Area Literary Translators Network (DC-ALT). Her latest collection is “Iron into Flower” (Finishing Line, 2022), and her co-translation of Venezuelan poet Maria Teresa Ogliastri’s “From the Diary of Madame Mao” won the 2025 Carnegie Mellon University Press Translation Prize and will be published in 2026. Her poems, translations, and essays have appeared in Foreign Policy in Focus, Tikkun, Virginia Quarterly Review, Split This Rock’s The Quarry, and 101 Jewish Poems for the Third Millennium (anthology). When she’s not writing, Yvette enjoys nature, yoga, dancing, traveling, and resisting fascism. She lives in Silver Spring, MD.
