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Stephen Berg is the author of numerous collections of poetry and translations, including 58 Poems (2013), Here (2014), and Steam Rising from a Full Bowl of Rice: Zen Master Dogen: Versions (2013), and has been awarded the Frank O’Hara Memorial Prize and a Columbia University Translation Prize. Berg has taught at Princeton and Haverford and is a professor of humanities at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

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Formless Stanza

by Stephen Berg
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Idiots call it death

Calm permanent bright as it is

Lunatics call it annihilation

Think of it as not doing a thing

Any idea of what it is is wrong

Fake names invented to help you talk

Only people whose minds are where they are

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  • Brilliant! I will meditate on this for a long time. How...

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