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Anthony Cody: 'Cada Día Más Cerca del Fin del Mundo'

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A collage of a photo of the poet Anthony Cody next to the first few lines of his featured poem.
Poet Anthony Cody with the first few lines from his featured poem. His most recent collection is called 'The Rendering.' (Courtesy Anthony Cody/Collage by Lakshmi Sarah of KQED)

The Sunday Music Drop is a weekly radio series hosted by the KQED weekend news team. In each segment, we feature a song from a local musician or band with an upcoming show and hear about what inspires their music.

Throughout April we have mixed it up in honor of National Poetry Month. We’ve brought you one poem each week from a poet with an upcoming reading. This week’s is the final poem in the series.

Anthony Cody wrote the opening poem from his collection, The Rendering, after doomscrolling and seeing a video online of a logging machine making quick work of a small forest. “Cada Día Más Cerca del Fin del Mundo” translates to, essentially, “Every day closer to the end of the world.”

Cody makes an effort to ensure that his poems are able to expand and engage with people beyond just the page. “If I can make poems in different settings and have different avenues for engagement,” he says, it’s a way to invite people in who also want to make poems or engage with the poem.

Cody describes his poetry as having a sort of “chaotic aesthetic.” He might veer away from a narrative poem and try to do something more experimental or a “little bit more funky.”

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For example, his book includes QR codes with links to ways of taking the poem off the page and into another form, with instructions to print and assemble one poem, “Nothing but a Margin, but a Yield,” as a double-sided deck.

Cody also explores different ways of creating these moments of pause or reflection. His poems explore a range of themes, from the history of lynchings of Mexicans and Mexican Americans in the Southwest to climate catastrophe. Ultimately, he’s interested in exploring how to create the space that allows a reader to think or interact. “How do we have that interruption, that intervention, that rupture in the moment so we can sort of engage with it differently?” he asks.

Cody will be talking about poetry and the archives of history on Saturday May 6, at 1 p.m. at The Marsh in Berkeley. He’ll also be exploring themes of apocalypse, survival and hope with a panel of poets on May 7, at 7 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Both events are part of the Bay Area Book Festival.

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