Blackbird

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Poetry

I Have Sent the Future on Ahead to Be Dealt With

AJ White

in the future, later, 
when I arrive.

You wish the present 
& the future met

like the lip 
of an envelope

folded into the envelope’s 
waiting mouth.

But something happens—
something happened

between then & now—
someone answered

one question more
than was asked.

AJ White

AJ White is a poet and educator from north Georgia. AJ’s debut poetry collection, Blue Loop, was selected for the 2024 National Poetry Series by Chelsea Dingman to be published by University of Georgia Press in September 2025. AJ’s poems have recently been published in The Account, Best New Poets, Overheard, West Trade Review, and elsewhere. AJ lives and teaches creative writing in New York.

Poetry

  • Not-Conversation with My Former Self

  • Inventory

  • I Have Sent the Future on Ahead to Be Dealt With

  • Follower

    • Book Reviews, Craft Essays, and Interviews

  • It is the Echo: Poetic Spiritualism in Charles Wright’s Appalachian Book of the Dead & in Late Twentieth & Early Twenty-First Century Poetry

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