After Moving to a Place Where I Do Not Know the Names of Plants and Birds

William Wenthe is the author of four books of poems, including his most recent collection, God’s Foolishness (LSU Press, 2016). He has received poetry fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Texas Commission on the Arts, and two Pushcart Prizes. “The Trial” is part of a larger project about the American expatriate painter James McNeill Whistler.