American Life in Poetry: Column
358
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Jaimee Kuperman is a poet living and working in the
Washington, D.C., area, and she shares with many of us
the experience of preparing one’s self for a visit to
the dentist. Do you, too, give your teeth an especially
thorough brushing before entering that waiting room?
The New Dentist
Driving to the new dentist’s office
the slow drive of a new place
with the McDonalds that I don’t go to
on the left, the mall two miles away.
The Courthouse and the Old Courthouse
road signs that break apart, the fork in the road
that looks nothing like a fork or a spoon, in fact
at best, maybe a knife bent in a dishwasher
that leans to one side. And I know the dentist
will ask about my last visit and want to know
in months that I can’t say some time ago
and I know he will ask me about flossing
and saying when I’m in the mood won’t be
the appropriate answer.
He will call out my cavities
as if they were names in a class.
I brush my teeth before going in.
It’s like cleaning before the cleaning person
but I don’t want him to know I keep an untidy
mouth. That I am the type of person who shoves
things in the closet before guests arrive.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2010 by Jaimee Kuperman and reprinted from
her most recent book of poetry, You Look Nice
Strange Man, ABZ Poetry Press, 2010. Reprinted by
permission of Jaimee Kuperman and the
publisher. Introduction copyright ©2012 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
357
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
The title of this beautiful poem by Edward Hirsch
contradicts the poem, which is indeed a prayer. Hirsch
lives in New York and is president of the John Simon
Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, one of our country’s
most distinguished cultural endowments.
I Was Never Able To Pray
Wheel me down to the shore
where the lighthouse was abandoned
and the moon tolls in the rafters.
Let me hear the wind paging through the trees
and see the stars flaring out, one by one,
like the forgotten faces of the dead.
I was never able to pray,
but let me inscribe my name
in the book of waves
and then stare into the dome
of a sky that never ends
and see my voice sail into the night.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2010 by Edward Hirsch, whose most recent book
of poetry is The Living Fire: New and Selected
Poems, Alfred A. Knopf, 2010. Reprinted from the
Northwest Review, Vol. 48, No. 2, 2010, by
permission of Edward Hirsch and the
publisher. Introduction copyright ©2012 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
356
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Nothing brings a poem to life more quickly than the
sense of smell, and Candace Black, who lives in
Minnesota, gets hold of us immediately, in this poem
about change, by putting us next to a dumpster.
Mr. D Shops At Fausto’s Food Palace
For years he lived close enough to smell
chicken and bananas rotting
in the trash bins, to surprise a cashier on break
smoking something suspicious when he walked
out the back gate. Did they have an account?
He can’t remember. Probably so, for all the milk
a large family went through, the last-minute
ingredients delivered by a smirking bag boy.
He liked to go himself, the parking lot’s
radiant heat erased once he got past the sweating
glass door, to troll the icy aisles in his slippers.
This was before high-end labels took over
shelf space, before baloney changed
its name to mortadella, before water
came in flavors, before fish
got flown in from somewhere else.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2010 by Candace Black, from her most recent
book of poetry, Casa Marina, RopeWalk Press,
2010. Reprinted by permission of Candace Black and the
publisher. Introduction copyright ©2012 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
355
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Here’s an experience that I’d guess most of the men who
read this column have had, getting into a rental tuxedo.
Bill Trowbridge, a poet from Missouri, does a fine job
of picturing that particular initiation rite.
Rental Tux
It chafed like some new skin we’d grown,
or feathers, the cummerbund and starched collar
pinching us to show how real this transformation
into princes was, how powerful we’d grown
by getting drivers’ licenses, how tall and total
our new perspective, above that rusty keyhole
parents squinted through. We’d found the key:
that nothing really counts except a romance
bright as Technicolor, wide as Cinerama,
and this could be the night. No lie.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2006 by William Trowbridge, from his most
recent book of poems, Ship of Fool, Red Hen
Press, 2011. Introduction copyright ©2012 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
354
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
A wise friend told me that since the Age of Reason we’ve
felt we had to explain everything, and that as a result
we’ve forgotten the value of mystery. Here’s a poem by
Lisel Mueller that celebrates mystery. Mueller is a
Pulitzer Prize winning poet from Illinois.
Sometimes, When the Light
Sometimes, when the light strikes at odd angles
and pulls you back into childhood
and you are passing a crumbling mansion
completely hidden behind old willows
or an empty convent guarded by hemlocks
and giant firs standing hip to hip,
you know again that behind that wall,
under the uncut hair of the willows
something secret is going on,
so marvelous and dangerous
that if you crawled through and saw,
you would die, or be happy forever.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©1980 by Lisel Mueller, from her most recent
book of poems, Alive Together: New and Selected
Poems, Louisiana State University Press, 1996. Poem
reprinted by permission of Lisel Mueller and the
publisher. Introduction copyright ©2011 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column 353
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Anne Coray is an Alaskan, and in this beautiful
meditation on the stillness of nature she shows us how
closely she’s studied something that others might simply
step over.
The Art of Being
The fern in the rain breathes the silver message.
Stay, lie low. Play your dark reeds
and relearn the beauty of absorption.
There is nothing beyond the rotten log
covered with leaves and needles.
Forget the light emerging with its golden wick.
Raise your face to the water-laden frond.
A thousand blossoms will fall into your arms.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2011 by Anne Coray from her most recent book
of poetry, A Measure’s Hush, Boreal Books,
2011. Poem reprinted by permission of Anne Coray and the
publisher. Introduction copyright ©2011 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
352
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Here’s a moving poem about parenthood,
about finding one’s self to be an adult but still trying
to care for the child within. Mark Jarman teaches at
Vanderbilt University.
After Disappointment
To lie in your child’s bed when she is gone
Is calming as anything I know. To fall
Asleep, her books arranged above your head,
Is to admit that you have never been
So tired, so enchanted by the spell
Of your grown body. To feel small instead
Of blocking out the light, to feel alone,
Not knowing what you should or shouldn’t feel,
Is to find out, no matter what you’ve said
About the cramped escapes and obstacles
You plan and face and have to call the world,
That there remain these places, occupied
By children, yours if lucky, like the girl
Who finds you here and lies down by your side.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©1997 by Mark Jarman and reprinted from
Bone Fires: New and Selected Poems, Sarabande
Books, 2011, by permission of Mark Jarman and the
publisher. Introduction copyright ©2011 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
351
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
In many of those Japanese paintings with Mt. Fuji in the
background, we find tiny figures moving along under the
immensity of the landscape. Here’s an American version
of a scene like that, by Stanley Plumly of Maryland, one
of our country’s most accomplished poets.
Off A Side Road Near Staunton
Some nothing afternoon, no one anywhere,
an early autumn stillness in the air,
the kind of empty day you fill by taking in
the full size of the valley and its layers leading
slowly to the Blue Ridge, the quality of country,
if you stand here long enough, you could stay
for, step into, the way a landscape, even on a wall,
pulls you in, one field at a time, pasture and fall
meadow, high above the harvest, perfect
to the tree line, then spirit clouds and intermittent
sunlit smoky rain riding the tops of the mountains,
though you could walk until it’s dark and not reach
those rains—
you could walk the rest of the day into the picture
and not know why, at any given moment, you’re there.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Reprinted
from Old Heart, by Stanley Plumly. Copyright
©2007 by Stanley Plumly. Used by permission of the
publisher, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. Introduction
copyright ©2011 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
350
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
The persons we are when we are young are probably buried
somewhere within us when we’ve grown old. Denise Low,
who was the Kansas poet laureate, takes a look at a
younger version of herself in this telling poem.
Two Gates
I look through glass and see a young woman
of twenty, washing dishes, and the window
turns into a painting. She is myself thirty years ago.
She holds the same blue bowls and brass teapot
I still own. I see her outline against lamplight;
she knows only her side of the pane. The porch
where I stand is empty. Sunlight fades. I hear
water run in the sink as she lowers her head,
blind to the future. She does not imagine I exist.
I step forward for a better look and she dissolves
into lumber and paint. A gate I passed through
to the next life loses shape. Once more I stand
squared into the present, among maple trees
and scissor-tailed birds, in a garden, almost
a mother to that faint, distant woman.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2010 by Denise Low, from her most recent book
of poetry, Ghost Stories of the New West,
Woodley Memorial Press, 2010. Poem reprinted by
permission of Denise Low and the publisher. Introduction
copyright ©2011 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry:
Column 349
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Here’s a fine poem about a cricket
by Catherine Tufariello, who lives in Indiana. I
especially admire the way in which she uses rhyme
without it ever taking control of the poetry, the way
rhyme can.
The Cricket in the Sump
He falls abruptly silent when we
fling
A basket down or bang the dryer shut,
But soon takes up again where he left off.
Swept by a rainstorm through a narrow trough
Clotted with cobwebs into Lord knows what
Impenetrable murk, he’s undeterred—
You’d think his dauntless solo was a chorus,
This rusty sump, a field or forest spring.
And there is something wondrous and absurd
About the way he does as he is bidden
By instinct, with his gift for staying hidden
While making sure unseen is plainly heard.
All afternoon his tremolo ascends
Clear to the second story, where a girl
Who also has learned blithely to ignore us
Sings to herself behind her bedroom door.
Maybe she moves to her invented score
With a conductor’s flourish, or pretends
She’s a Spanish dancer, lost in stamp and whirl
And waving fan—notes floating, as she plays,
Through the open window where the willow sways
And shimmers, humming to another string.
There is no story where the story ends.
What does a singer live for but to sing?
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2010 by Catherine Tufariello, whose first
book of poetry is Keeping My Name, Texas Tech,
2004. Reprinted from Able Muse, Inaugural Print
Issue, Winter 2010, by permission of Catherine
Tufariello and the publisher. Introduction copyright
©2011 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
348
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
When we’re on all fours in a garden, planting or
weeding, we’re as close to our ancient ancestors as
we’re going to get. Here, while he works in the dirt,
Richard Levine feels the sacred looking over his
shoulder.
Believe This
All morning, doing the hard, root-wrestling
work of turning a yard from the wild
to a gardener’s will, I heard a bird singing
from a hidden, though not distant, perch;
a song of swift, syncopated syllables sounding
like, Can you believe this, believe this, believe?
Can you believe this, believe this, believe?
And all morning, I did believe. All morning,
between break-even bouts with the unwanted,
I wanted to see that bird, and looked up so
I might later recognize it in a guide, and know
and call its name, but even more, I wanted
to join its church. For all morning, and many
a time in my life, I have wondered who, beyond
this plot I work, has called the order of being,
that givers of food are deemed lesser
than are the receivers. All morning,
muscling my will against that of the wild,
to claim a place in the bounty of earth,
seed, root, sun and rain, I offered my labor
as a kind of grace, and gave thanks even
for the aching in my body, which reached
beyond this work and this gift of struggle.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright © 2010 by Richard Levine, from his most recent
book of poetry, That Country’s Soul, Finishing
Line Press, 2010, by permission of Richard Levine and
the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2011 by The
Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column 347
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
My mother and her sisters were experts at using faint
praise, and “Bless her heart” was a very useful tool for
them. Richard Newman, of St. Louis, does a great job
here of showing us how far that praise can be stretched.
Bless Their Hearts
At Steak ‘n Shake I learned that if you add
“Bless their hearts” after their names, you can say
whatever you want about them and it’s OK.
My son, bless his heart, is an idiot,
she said. He rents storage space for his kids’
toys—they’re only one and three years old!
I said, my father, bless his heart, has turned
into a sentimental old fool. He gets
weepy when he hears my daughter’s greeting
on our voice mail. Before our Steakburgers came
someone else blessed her office mate’s heart,
then, as an afterthought, the jealous hearts
of the entire anthropology department.
We bestowed blessings on many a heart
that day. I even blessed my ex-wife’s heart.
Our waiter, bless his heart, would not be getting
much tip, for which, no doubt, he’d bless our hearts.
In a week it would be Thanksgiving,
and we would each sit with our respective
families, counting our blessings and blessing
the hearts of family members as only family
does best. Oh, bless us all, yes, bless us, please
bless us and bless our crummy little hearts.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by Richard Newman from his most recent
book of poetry, Domestic Fugues, Steel Toe
Books, 2009. Reprinted by permission of Richard
Newman. Introduction copyright ©2011 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column 346
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
It seems to me that most poems are set in spring or
summer, and I was pleased to discover this one by Molly
Fisk, a Californian, set in cold midwinter.
Winter Sun
How valuable it is in these short days,
threading through empty maple branches,
the lacy-needled sugar pines.
Its glint off sheets of ice tells the story
of Death’s brightness, her bitter cold.
We can make do with so little, just the hint
of warmth, the slanted light.
The way we stand there, soaking in it,
mittened fingers reaching.
And how carefully we gather what we can
to offer later, in darkness, one body to another.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2010 by Molly Fisk from her most recent book
of poetry, The More Difficult Beauty, Hip
Pocket Press, 2010. Reprinted by permission of Molly
Fisk and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2011 by
The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted
Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant
in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We
do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
345
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Somebody tells somebody else about something that
happened. It comes naturally. We’ve been doing that for
as long as our species has been around. But to elevate
an anecdote into art requires more than just relating an
incident. It requires a talent for pacing, for detail,
for persuasion, and more. Here David Black, of Virginia,
tells a good story in an artful manner.
Sleepers
A sleeper, they used to call
it—
four passes with the giant round saw
and you had a crosstie, 7 inches by 9 of white oak—
at two hundred pounds nearly twice my weight
and ready to break finger or toe—
like coffin lids, those leftover slabs,
their new-sawn faces turning gold and brown
as my own in the hot Virginia sun,
drying toward the winter and the woodsaw
and on the day of that chore
I turned over a good, thick one
looking for the balance point
and roused a three-foot copperhead,
gold and brown like the wood,
disdaining the shoe it muscled across,
each rib distinct as a needle stitching leather,
heavy on my foot as a crosstie.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2000 by David Black, whose most recent book
of poetry is The Clown in the Tent, Persimmon
Tree Press, 2010. Reprinted by permission of David
Black. Introduction copyright ©2011 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column 344
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I love listening to shop talk, to overhear people
talking about their work. Their speech is not only rich
with the colorful names of tools and processes, but it’s
also full of resignation. A job is, after all, a job.
Here’s a poem by Jorge Evans of Minnesota, who’s done
some hard work.
Overtime
Fair season and we’re tent pitching
on holy grounds in central Illinois,
busting through pavement with jack hammers,
driving home a stake that will be pulled two months
from now. One of us holds, the other presses
down, grease shooting between cracks
in the old hammer’s worn shell
to our hands and faces—one slip and we’ve
lost our toes. I’m from the warehouse,
not the tent crew. I haven’t ridden around
in tent haulers across the nation
popping tents here and there, but for this,
the state fair, the warehousers are let out
to feel important. Around us a silvered city
has risen, white vinyl tents at full mast
and clean for the first time in a year. It’s August.
It’s the summer’s dogged days when humidity
doesn’t break until midnight, an hour after
the fair’s closed down. We’re piled on back
of a flatbed with our tools, our tiredness.
We’re a monster understood best
by Midwesterners, devouring parking lots
and fields, our teeth stained by cigarette
and chew, some of us not old enough, some
too old. All of us here for the overtime.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2010 by Jorge Evans. Reprinted from the
South Dakota Review, Vol. 48, no. 2, Summer
2010, by permission of Jorge Evans and the
publisher. Introduction copyright ©2011 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
343
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Most of us have received the delayed news of the death
of a family member or friend, and perhaps have reflected
on lost opportunities. Here’s a fine poem by J. T.
Ledbetter, who lives in California but grew up on the
Great Plains.
Crossing Shoal Creek
The letter said you died on your tractor
crossing Shoal Creek.
There were no pictures to help the memories fading
like mists off the bottoms that last day on the farm
when I watched you milk the cows,
their sweet breath filling the dark barn as the rain
that wasn’t expected sluiced through the rain gutters.
I waited for you to speak the loud familiar words
about the weather, the failed crops—
I would have talked then, too loud, stroking the
Holstein
moving against her stanchion—
but there was only the rain on the tin roof,
and the steady swish-swish of milk into the bright
bucket
as I walked past you, so close we could have touched.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2010 by J.T. Ledbetter, and reprinted from
his most recent book of poetry, Underlying Premises,
Lewis Clark Press, 2010, by permission of J.T. Ledbetter
and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2011 by The
Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column 342
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Your high school English teacher made an
effort to teach you and your bored classmates about
sonnets, which have specific patterns of rhyme, and he
or she used as an example a great poem by Keats or
Shelley, about some heroic subject. To counter the
memory of those long and probably tedious hours, I offer
you this perfectly made sonnet by Roy Scheele, a
Nebraska poet, about a more humble, common subject.
Woman Feeding Chickens
Her hand is at the feedbag at her waist,
sunk to the wrist in the rustling grain
that nuzzles her fingertips when laced
around a sifting handful. It’s like rain,
like cupping water in your hand, she thinks,
the cracks between the fingers like a sieve,
except that less escapes you through the chinks
when handling grain. She likes to feel it give
beneath her hand’s slow plummet, and the smell,
so rich a fragrance she has never quite
got used to it, under the seeming spell
of the charm of the commonplace. The white
hens bunch and strut, heads cocked, with tilted eyes,
till her hand sweeps out and the small grain flies.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2010 by Roy Scheele from his most recent book
of poetry, A Far Allegiance, The Backwaters
Press, 2010. Reprinted by permission of Roy Scheele and
the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2011 by The
Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
341
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Here’s a poem of mixed feelings by Don Thompson to help
us launch October. Thompson lives in Buttonwillow,
California, which sounds like the name of a town in a
children’s story, don’t you think?
October
I used to think the land
had something to say to us,
back when wildflowers
would come right up to your hand
as if they were tame.
Sooner or later, I thought,
the wind would begin to make sense
if I listened hard
and took notes religiously.
That was spring.
Now I’m not so sure:
the cloudless sky has a flat affect
and the fields plowed down after harvest
seem so expressionless,
keeping their own counsel.
This afternoon, nut tree leaves
blow across them
as if autumn had written us a long letter,
changed its mind,
and tore it into little scraps.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2010 by Don Thompson, whose most recent book
of poetry is Where We Live, Parallel Press,
2009. Reprinted from Plainsongs, Vol. 30, no.
3, Spring 2010, by permission of Don Thompson and the
publisher. Introduction copyright ©2011 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
340
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I like birds, and poems about birds, and several years
ago I co-edited an anthology of bird poems called
The Poets Guide to the Birds. I wish Judith Harris
had written this lovely description of a mockingbird in
time for us to include it, but it’s brand new. Harris
lives in Washington, D.C.
Mockingbird
I can hear him,
now, even in darkness,
a trickster under the moon,
bristling his feathers,
sounding as merry
as a man whistling in a straw hat,
or a squeaky gate
to the playground, left ajar
or the jingling of a star,
having wandered too far
from the pasture.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright © 2010 by Judith Harris, whose most recent
book of poetry is The Bad Secret, Louisiana
State University Press, 2006. Poem reprinted from
Narrative, Summer, 2011, by permission of Judith
Harris. Introduction copyright ©2011 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
339
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
People have been learning to cook since our ancient
ancestors discovered fire, and most of us learn from
somebody who knows how. I love this little poem by
Daniel Nyikos of Utah, for its contemporary take on
accepting directions from an elder, from two elders in
this instance.
Potato Soup
I set up my computer and webcam in the kitchen
so I can ask my mother’s and aunt’s advice
as I cook soup for the first time alone.
My mother is in Utah. My aunt is in Hungary.
I show the onions to my mother with the webcam.
“Cut them smaller,” she advises.
“You only need a taste.”
I chop potatoes as the onions fry in my pan.
When I say I have no paprika to add to the broth,
they argue whether it can be called potato soup.
My mother says it will be white potato soup,
my aunt says potato soup must be red.
When I add sliced peppers, I ask many times
if I should put the water in now,
but they both say to wait until I add the potatoes.
I add Polish sausage because I can’t find Hungarian,
and I cook it so long the potatoes fall apart.
“You’ve made stew,” my mother says
when I hold up the whole pot to the camera.
They laugh and say I must get married soon.
I turn off the computer and eat alone.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2010 by Daniel Nyikos. Reprinted by
permission of Daniel Nyikos. Introduction copyright
©2011 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
338
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
We all hope our children’s lives will be better than our
own, and invest in that hope in a variety of ways. Here
Michael Ryan of California compares what we can provide
for them with what we can’t.
Girls’ Middle School Orchestra
They’re all dressed up in carmine
floor-length velvet gowns, their upswirled hair
festooned with matching ribbons:
their fresh hopes and our fond hopes for them
infuse this sort-of-music as if happiness could actually
be
each-plays-her-part-and-all-will-take-care-of-itself.
Their hearts unscarred under quartz lights
beam through the darkness in which we sit
to show us why we endured at home
the squeaking and squawking and botched notes
that now in concert are almost beautiful,
almost rendering this heartrending music
composed for an archduke who loved it so much
he spent his fortune for the musicians
who could bring it brilliantly to life.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2010 by Michael Ryan, whose most recent book
of poetry is New and Selected Poems, Houghton
Mifflin, 2004. Reprinted from The American Poetry
Review, Vol. 39, no. 5, Sept./Oct. 2010, by
permission of Michael Ryan and the
publisher. Introduction copyright ©2011 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column 337
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
South Dakota poet Leo Dangel has written some of the
best and truest poems about rural life that I’m aware
of. Here’s a fine one about a chance discovery.
Behind the Plow
I look in the turned sod
for an iron bolt that fell
from the plow frame
and find instead an arrowhead
with delicate, chipped edges,
still sharp, not much larger
than a woman’s long fingernail.
Pleased, I put the arrowhead
into my overalls pocket,
knowing that the man who shot
the arrow and lost his work
must have looked for it
much longer than I will
look for that bolt.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©1987 by Leo Dangel, whose most recent book of
poems is The Crow on the Golden Arches, Spoon
River Poetry Press, 2004. Poem reprinted from A
Harvest of Words: Contemporary South Dakota Poetry,
Patrick Hicks, Ed., Pine Hill Press, Inc., 2010, by
permission of Leo Dangel and the
publisher. Introduction copyright ©2011 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
336
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
This week’s column is by Ladan Osman, who is originally
from Somalia but who now lives in Chicago. I like
“Tonight” for the way it looks with clear eyes at one of
the rough edges of American life, then greets us with a
hopeful wave.
Tonight
Tonight is a drunk man,
his dirty shirt.
There is no couple chatting by the recycling bins,
offering to help me unload my plastics.
There is not even the black and white cat
that balances elegantly on the lip of the dumpster.
There is only the smell of sour breath. Sweat on the
collar of my shirt.
A water bottle rolling under a car.
Me in my too-small pajama pants stacking juice jugs on
neighbors’ juice jugs.
I look to see if there is someone drinking on their
balcony.
I tell myself I will wave.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2010 by Ladan Osman, and reprinted by
permission of the poet. Introduction copyright ©2011 by
The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted
Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant
in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We
do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
335
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I’ve always been fascinated by miniatures of all kinds,
the little glass animals I played with as a boy,
electric trains, dollhouses, and I think it’s because I
can feel that I’m in complete control. Everything is
right in its place, and I’m the one who put it there.
Here’s a poem by Kay Mullen, who lives in Washington,
about the art of bonsai.
Bonsai
at the Potter's Stall
Under fluorescent light,
aligned on a bench
and table top, oranges
the size of marbles dangle
from trees with glossy
leaves. White trumpets
bloom in tiny clay pots.
Under a firethorn’s twisted
limbs, a three inch monk
holds a cup from which
he appears to drink
the interior life. The potter
prizes his bonsai children
who will never grow up,
never leave home.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2006 by Kay Mullen, and reprinted from her
most recent book of poetry, A Long Remembering:
Return to Vietnam, FootHills Publishing, 2006, by
permission of Kay Mullen and the
publisher. Introduction copyright ©2011 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
334
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Those of us who have gone back home to attend a reunion
of classmates may have felt the strangeness of being a
vaguely familiar person among others who, too, seem
vaguely familiar. Dana Gioia, who served the country for
four years as the Chair of the National Endowment for
the Arts, is an accomplished poet and a noted advocate
for poetry.
Reunion
This is my past where no one knows me.
These are my friends whom I can’t name—
Here in a field where no one chose me,
The faces older, the voices the same.
Why does this stranger rise to greet me?
What is the joke that makes him smile,
As he calls the children together to meet me,
Bringing them forward in single file?
I nod pretending to recognize them,
Not knowing exactly what I should say.
Why does my presence seem to surprise them?
Who is the woman who turns away?
Is this my home or an illusion?
The bread on the table smells achingly real.
Must I at last solve my confusion,
Or is confusion all I can feel?
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2010 by Dana Gioia, whose most recent book of
poetry is Interrogations at Noon, Graywolf
Press, 2001. Poem reprinted from Poetry,
September, 2010, by permission of Dana Gioia and the
publisher. Introduction copyright ©2011 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
333
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Here is a lovely poem by Robert Cording, a poet who
lives in Connecticut, which shows us a fresh new way of
looking at something commonplace. That’s the kind of
valuable service a poet can provide.
Old Houses
Year after year after year
I have come to love slowly
how old houses hold themselves—
before November’s drizzled rain
or the refreshing light of June—
as if they have all come to agree
that, in time, the days are no longer
a matter of suffering or rejoicing.
I have come to love
how they take on the color of rain or sun
as they go on keeping their vigil
without need of a sign, awaiting nothing
more than the birds that sing from the eaves,
the seizing cold that sounds the rafters.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2010 by Robert Cording from his most recent
book of poetry, Walking with Ruskin, CavanKerry
Press, Ltd., 2010. Reprinted by permission of Robert
Cording. Introduction copyright ©2011 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
332
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I’d guess that nearly everyone is aware that time seems
to speed up as we age. Whenever I say that something
happened ten years ago, my wife reminds me that it was
twenty. Here’s a poem about time by the distinguished
Maryland poet, Linda Pastan.
Counting Backwards
How did I get so old,
I wonder,
contemplating
my 67th birthday.
Dyslexia smiles:
I’m 76 in fact.
There are places
where at 60 they start
counting backwards;
in Japan
they start again
from one.
But the numbers
hardly matter.
It’s the physics
of acceleration I mind,
the way time speeds up
as if it hasn’t guessed
the destination—
where look!
I see my mother
and father bearing a cake,
waiting for me
at the starting line.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2010 by Linda Pastan, whose most recent book
of poems is Traveling Light, W.W. Norton, 2011.
Poem reprinted from Nimrod International Journal,
Awards 32, Vol. 54, no. 1, 2010. Rights granted by
Linda Pastan, in care of the Jean V. Naggar Literary
Agency. Introduction copyright ©2011 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
331
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
It is estimated that one out of five Americans enjoys
spending time bird watching, or birding, and here’s a
poem for some of those people by Kathleen M. McCann, who
lives in Massachusetts. I especially like the way she
captures the egret’s stealthy motion in the second
stanza.
Lone Egret
Classically stagy, goose-neck
elegant, river’s third eye.
Pencil thin head. S
for a throat. Skeleton of a saint.
Plodder, preening posturer.
One foot,
another.
Up from the dank weeds.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2010 by Kathleen M. McCann, whose most recent
book of poetry is A Roof Gone to Sky, Carpenter
Gothic Publishers, Inc., 2010. Reprinted from South
Dakota Review, Vol. 48, no. 1, 2010, by permission
of Kathleen M. McCann and the publisher. Introduction
copyright ©2011 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
330
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Humans first prized horses for their strength and speed,
but we have since been captivated by their beauty, their
deep eyes and mysterious silences. Here’s a poem by
Robert Wrigley, who lives in Idaho, where the oldest
fossilized remains of the modern horse were found.
After a Rainstorm
Because I have come to the fence at night,
the horses arrive also from their ancient stable.
They let me stroke their long faces, and I note
in the light of the now-merging moon
how they, a Morgan and a Quarter, have been
by shake-guttered raindrops
spotted around their rumps and thus made
Appaloosas, the ancestral horses of this place.
Maybe because it is night, they are nervous,
or maybe because they too sense
what they have become, they seem
to be waiting for me to say something
to whatever ancient spirits might still abide here,
that they might awaken from this strange dream,
in which there are fences and stables and a man
who doesn’t know a single word they understand.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2010 by Robert Wrigley from his most recent
book of poetry, Beautiful Country, Penguin
Books, 2010. Introduction copyright ©2011 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
329
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I’ve gotten to the age at which I spend a lot of time
remembering, and it’s the fragments that seem to affect
me the most, fleeting glimpses into the past that leave
me still reaching for something I can’t quite grasp.
Here Roy Scheele, a fine Nebraska poet, perfectly
captures one of those passing memories.
Produce Wagon
The heat shimmer along our street
one midsummer midafternoon,
and wading up through it a horse’s hooves,
and each shoe raising a tongueless bell
that tolled in the neighborhood,
till the driver drew in the reins
and the horse hung its head and stood.
And something in a basket thin
as shavings (blackberries? or a ghost
of the memory of having tasted them?)
passing into my hands as mother paid,
and the man got up again,
slapping the loop from the reins,
and was off on his trundling wagon.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2010 by Roy Scheele from his most recent book
of poetry, A Far Allegiance, The Backwaters
Press, 2010. Reprinted by permission of Roy Scheele and
the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2011 by The
Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
328
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
How I love poems in which there is evidence of a poet
paying close attention to the world about him. Here
Angelo Giambra, who lives in Florida, has been keeping
an eye on the bees.
The Water Carriers
On hot days we would see them
leaving the hive in swarms. June and I
would watch them weave their way
through the sugarberry trees toward the pond
where they would stop to take a drink,
then buzz their way back, plump and full of water,
to drop it on the backs of the fanning bees.
If you listened you could hear them, their tiny wings
beating in unison as they cooled down the hive.
My brother caught one once, its bulbous body
bursting with water, beating itself against
the smooth glass wall of the canning jar.
He lit a match, dropped it in, but nothing
happened. The match went out and the bee
swam through the mix of sulfur and smoke
until my brother let it out. It flew straight
back to the hive. Later, we skinny-dipped
in the pond, the three of us, the August sun
melting the world around us as if it were
wax. In the cool of the evening, we walked
home, pond water still dripping from our skin,
glistening and twinkling like starlight.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by Angelo Giambra, whose most recent
book of poetry is Oranges and Eggs, Finishing
Line Press, 2010. Poem reprinted from the South
Dakota Review, Vol. 47, no. 4, Winter 2009, by
permission of Angelo Giambra and publisher.
Introduction copyright ©2011 by The Poetry Foundation.
The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
327
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Some of us have more active fantasy lives than others,
but all of us have them. Here Karin Gottshall, who lives
in Vermont, shares a variety of loneliness that some of
our readers may have experienced.
More Lies
Sometimes I say I’m going to meet my sister at the café—
even though I have no sister—just because it’s such
a beautiful thing to say. I’ve always thought so, ever
since
I read a novel in which two sisters were constantly
meeting
in cafés. Today, for example, I walked alone
on the wet sidewalk, wearing my rain boots, expecting
someone might ask where I was headed. I bought
a steno pad and a watch battery, the store windows
fogged up. Rain in April is a kind of promise, and it
costs
nothing. I carried a bag of books to the café and
ordered
tea. I like a place that’s lit by lamps. I like a place
where you can hear people talk about small things,
like the difference between azure and cerulean,
and the price of tulips. It’s going down. I watched
someone who could be my sister walk in, shaking the rain
from her hair. I thought, even now florists are filling
their coolers with tulips, five dollars a bundle. All
over
the city there are sisters. Any one of them could be
mine.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2010 by Karin Gottshall, whose most recent
book of poetry is Crocus, Fordham University
Press, 2007. Poem reprinted from the New Ohio
Review, No. 8, Fall 2010, by permission of Karin
Gottshall and the publisher. Introduction copyright
©2011 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
326
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I am especially fond of what we might call landscape
poems, describing places, scenes. Here April Lindner,
who lives in Philadelphia, paints a scene we might come
upon on the back side of any great American city.
Our Lady of Perpetual Help
The burnt church up the street yawns to the sky,
its empty windows edged in soot, its portals
boarded up and slathered with graffiti,
oily layers, urgent but illegible.
All that can be plundered has been, all
but the carapace—the hollow bell tower,
the fieldstone box that once served as a nave.
The tidy row of homes that line this block
have tended lawns and scalloped bathtub shrines.
Each front porch holds a chair where no one sits.
Those who live here triple lock their doors
day and night. Some mornings they step out
to find a smoking car stripped to its skeleton
abandoned at the curb. Most afternoons
the street is still but for a mourning dove
and gangs of pigeons picking through the grass.
Our Lady of Perpetual Help is gray,
a dead incisor in a wary smile.
A crevice in her wall allows a glimpse
into the chancel, where a sodden mattress
and dirty blanket indicate that someone
finds this place a sanctuary still,
takes his rest here, held and held apart
from passers by, their cruelties and their kindnesses,
watched over by the night’s blind congregation,
by the blank eyes of a concrete saint.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2010 by Able Muse Review and April
Lindner, whose most recent novel is Jane, Poppy,
2010. Poem reprinted from Able Muse Anthology, Able
Muse Press, 2010, by permission of the publisher.
Introduction copyright ©2011 by The Poetry Foundation.
The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
325
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Many of us have attempted to console friends who have
recently been divorced, and though it can be a pretty
hard sell, we have assured them that things will indeed
be better with the passage of time. Here’s a fine poem
of consolation by Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, who teaches at
Penn State.
One Day
One day, you will awake from your covering
and that heart of yours will be totally mended,
and there will be no more burning within.
The owl, calling in the setting of the sun
and the deer path, all erased.
And there will be no more need for love
or lovers or fears of losing lovers
and there will be no more burning timbers
with which to light a new fire,
and there will be no more husbands or people
related to husbands, and there will be no more
tears or reason to shed your tears.
You will be as mended as the bridge
the working crew has just reopened.
The thick air will be vanquished with the tide
and the river that was corrupted by lies
will be cleansed and totally free.
And the rooster will call in the setting sun
and the sun will beckon homeward,
hiding behind your one tree that was not felled.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2010 by Patricia Jabbeh Wesley from her
fourth book of poetry, Where the Road Turns,
Autumn House Press, 2010. Poem reprinted by permission
of Patricia Jabbeh Wesley and the publisher.
Introduction copyright 2011 by The Poetry Foundation.
The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
324
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Here’s a fine poem by my fellow Nebraskan, Barbara
Schmitz, who here offers us a picture of people we’ve
all observed but haven’t thought to write about.
Uniforms
It is very hot—92 today—to be wearing
a stocking cap, but the adolescent swaggering
through the grocery store automatic door
doesn’t seem to mind; does not even appear
to be perspiring. The tugged-down hat
is part of his carefully orchestrated outfit:
bagging pants, screaming t-shirt, high-topped
shoes. The young woman who yells to her friends
from an open pickup window is attired
for summer season in strapless stretch
tube top, slipping down toward bountiful
cleavage valley. She tugs it up in front
as she races toward the two who have
just passed a cigarette between them
like a baton on a relay team. Her white
chest gleams like burnished treasure
as they giggle loudly there in the corner
and I glance down to see what costume
I have selected to present myself to
the world today. I smile; it’s my sky blue
shirt with large deliberately faded Peace sign,
smack dab in the middle, plus grey suede
Birkenstocks—a message that “I lived through
the sixties and am so proud.” None of the
young look my way. I round the corner and
walk into Evening descending.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by Barbara Schmitz, whose most recent
book of poems is How Much Our Dancing Has Improved,
Backwaters Press, 2005. Poem reprinted from the
South Dakota Review, Vol. 47, no. 3, 2009, by
permission of Barbara Schmitz and the publisher.
Introduction copyright 2011 by The Poetry Foundation.
The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
323
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Joe Paddock is a Minnesota poet and he and I are, as we
say in the Midwest, “of an age.” Here is a fine poem
about arriving at a stage when there can be great joy in
accepting life as it comes to us.
One’s Ship Comes In
I swear
my way now will be
to continue without
plan or hope, to accept
the drift of things, to shift
from endless effort
to joy in, say,
that robin, plunging
into the mossy shallows
of my bird bath and
splashing madly till
the air shines with spray.
Joy it will be, say,
in Nancy, pretty in pink
and rumpled T-shirt,
rubbing sleep from her eyes, or
joy even in
just this breathing, free
of fright and clutch, knowing
how one’s ship comes in
with each such breath.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also
supported by the Department of English at the University
of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2009 by Joe Paddock
from his most recent book of poetry, Dark Dreaming,
Global Dimming, Red Dragonfly Press, 2009. Reprinted by
permission of Joe Paddock and the publisher.
Introduction copyright 2011 by The Poetry Foundation.
The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
322
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Cathy Smith Bowers was recently appointed poet laureate
of North Carolina, and I want to celebrate her
appointment by showing you one of her lovely poems, a
peaceful poem about a peaceful thing.
Peace Lilies
I collect them now, it seems. Like
sea-shells or old
thimbles. One for
Father. One for
Mother. Two for my sweet brothers.
Odd how little
they require of
me. Unlike the
ones they were sent in memory
of. No sudden
shrilling of the
phone. No harried
midnight flights. Only a little
water now and
then. Scant food and
light. See how I’ve
brought them all together here in
this shaded space
beyond the stairs.
Even when they
thirst, they summon me with nothing
more than a soft,
indifferent furl-
ing of their leaves.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2004 by Cathy Smith Bowers, whose most recent
book of poetry is The Candle I Hold Up to See You,
Iris Press, 2009. Poem reprinted from A Book of
Minutes, Iris Press, 2004, by permission of Cathy
Smith Bowers and the publisher. Introduction copyright
2011 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
321
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
For me, the most worthwhile poetry is that which reaches
out and connects with a great number of people, and this
one, by Joe Mills of North Carolina, does just that.
Every parent gets questions like the one at the center
of this poem.
How You Know
How do you know if it’s love?
she asks,
and I think if you have to ask, it’s not,
but I know this won’t help. I want to say
you’re too young to worry about it,
as if she has questions about Medicare
or social security, but this won’t help either.
“You’ll just know” is a lie, and one truth,
“when you still want to be with them
the next morning,” would involve too
many follow-up questions. The difficulty
with love, I want to say, is sometimes
you only know afterwards that it’s arrived
or left. Love is the elephant and we
are the blind mice unable to understand
the whole. I want to say love is this
desire to help even when I know I can’t,
just as I couldn’t explain electricity, stars,
the color of the sky, baldness, tornadoes,
fingernails, coconuts, or the other things
she has asked about over the years, all
those phenomena whose daily existence
seems miraculous. Instead I shake my head.
I don’t even know how to match my socks.
Go ask your mother. She laughs and says,
I did. Mom told me to come and
ask you.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2010 by Joe Mills, whose most recent book of
poetry is Love and Other Collisions, Press 53,
2010. Poem reprinted from Rattle, Vol. 16, no.
1, Summer 2010, by permission of Joe Mills and the
publisher. Introduction copyright 2011 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
320
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
When I was a little boy, the fear of polio hung over my
summers, keeping me away from the swimming pool. Atomic
energy was then in its infancy. It had defeated Japan
and seemed to be America’s friend. Jehanne Dubrow, who
lives and teaches in Maryland, is much younger than I,
and she grew up under the fearsome cloud of what atomic
energy was to become.
Chernobyl Year
We dreamed of glowing children,
their throats alive and cancerous,
their eyes like lightning in the dark.
We were uneasy in our skins,
sixth grade, a year for blowing up,
for learning that nothing contains
that heat which comes from growing,
the way our parents seemed at once
both tall as cooling towers and crushed
beneath the pressure of small things—
family dinners, the evening news,
the dead voice of the dial tone.
Even the ground was ticking.
The parts that grew grew poison.
Whatever we ate became a stone.
Whatever we said was love became
plutonium, became a spark
of panic in the buried world.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2010 by Jehanne Dubrow, whose most recent
book of poems is Stateside, Northwestern Univ.
Press, 2010. Poem reprinted from West Branch,
No. 66, 2010, by permission of Jehanne Dubrow and the
publisher. Introduction copyright 2011 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
319
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Here’s a poem in which eight-year-old Ava
Schicke, who lives in Omaha, Nebraska, tells us just who
she is and what she thinks.
I am
I am a daughter and a sister.
I wonder when I will die.
I hear the warm weather coming.
I see stars in the day.
I want to learn my whole ballet dance.
I am a daughter and a sister.
I pretend to be a teacher at home.
I feel like I am a teacher.
I touch hands that are growing.
I worry that I will never change.
I cry when something or someone dies.
I am a daughter and a sister.
I understand that teachers work hard for students.
I say that I don’t like bullies.
I dream about me not moving while trying really hard to
run.
I try to become a good friend.
I hope that there is no more dying or killing.
I am a daughter and a sister.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2011 by Ava Schicke. Introduction copyright
2011 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
318
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I love poems that take pains to observe people at their
tasks, and here’s a fine one by Christopher Todd
Matthews, who lives in Virginia.
Window
Washer
One hand slops suds on, one
hustles them down like a blind.
Brusque noon glare, filtered thus,
loosens and glows. For five or
six minutes he owns the place,
dismal coffee bar, and us, its
huddled underemployed. A blade,
black line against the topmost glass,
begins, slices off the outer lather,
flings it away, works inward,
corrals the frothy middle, and carves,
with quick cuts, the stuff down,
not looking for anything, beneath
or inside. Homes to the last,
cleans its edges, grooms it for
the end, then shaves it off
and flings it away. Which is
splendid, and merciless. And all
in the wrist. Then, he looks at us.
We makers of filth, we splashers
and spitters. We sitters and watchers.
Who like to see him work.
Who love it when he leaves
and gives it back: our grim hideout,
half spoiled by clarity.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2010 by Christopher Todd Matthews, and
reprinted from Field, No. 82, 2010, by
permission of Christopher Todd Matthews and the
publisher. Introduction copyright 2011 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
317
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Our wars come home, sooner or later. Judith Harris lives
in Washington, D.C., and in this poem gives us a veteran
of Iraq back among the ordinary activities of American
life.
End of Market Day
At five, the market is closing.
Burdock roots, parsley, and rutabagas
are poured back into the trucks.
The antique dealer breaks down his tables.
Light dappled, in winter parkas
shoppers hunt for bargains:
a teapot, or costume jewelry,
a grab bag of rubbishy vegetables for stew.
Now twilight, the farmer’s wife
bundled in her tweed coat and pocket apron
counts out her cash from a metal box,
and nods to her grown-up son
back from a tour in Iraq,
as he waits in the station wagon
with the country music turned way up,
his prosthetic leg gunning the engine.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by Judith Harris, whose most recent book
of poetry is The Bad Secret, Louisiana State
University Press, 2006. Poem reprinted from The
Southern Review, Vol. 46, no. 1, 2009, by
permission of Judith Harris and the publisher.
Introduction copyright © 2011 by The Poetry Foundation.
The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
316
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I’ve mentioned before how much I like
poems that take the time to carefully observe people at
work. Here David St. John, who lives in California,
gives us a snapshot of workers protecting an orchard.
Peach
Fires
Out in the orchards the dogs stood
Almost frozen in the bleak spring night
& Mister dragged out into the rows
Between his peach trees the old dry limbs
Building at regular intervals careful pyres
While the teeth of the dogs chattered & snapped
& the ice began to hang long as whiskers
From the globes along the branches
& at his signal we set the piles of branches ablaze
Tending each carefully so as not to scorch
The trees as we steadily fed those flames
Just enough to send a rippling glow along
Those acres of orchard where that body—
Sister Winter—had been held so wisely to the fire
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2002 by David St. John, whose most recent
book of poetry is The Face: A Novella in Verse,
Harper Collins, 2004. Poem reprinted from The Place
That Inhabits Us, Sixteen Rivers Press, 2010, by
permission of David St. John and the publishers.
Introduction copyright © 2011 by The Poetry Foundation.
The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
315
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
We who teach creative writing have been known to tell
our students that there is no subject so common and
ordinary that it can’t be addressed in a poem, and this
one, by Michael McFee, who lives in North Carolina, is a
good example of that.
Spitwads
Little paper cuds we made
by ripping the corners or edges
from homework and class notes
then ruminating them into balls
we’d flick from our fingertips
or catapult with pencils
or (sometimes after lunch)
launch through striped straws
like deadly projectiles
toward the necks of enemies
and any other target where they’d
stick with the tiniest splat,
I hope you’re still there,
stuck to unreachable ceilings
like the beginnings of nests
by generations of wasps
too ignorant to finish them
or under desktops with blunt
stalactites of chewing gum,
little white words we learned
to shape and hold in our mouths
while waiting to let them fly,
our most tenacious utterance.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2005 by Michael McFee, whose most recent book
of poetry is The Smallest Talk, Bull City
Press, 2007. Poem reprinted from Shinemaster,
Carnegie Mellon Univ. Press, 2006, by permission of
Michael McFee and the publisher. Introduction copyright
© 2011 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
314
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Maybe you have to be a poet to get away with sniffing
the paws of a dog, and I have sniffed the paws of all of
mine, which almost always smell like hayfields in
sunlight. Here Jane Varley, who lives in Ohio, offers us
a touching last moment with a dear friend.
Packing the Car for Our Western Camping Trip
What we will remember—we tried to take the dog,
packed around him, making a cozy spot
at the back of the Subaru, blocking out the sun,
resisting the obvious—
he was too old, he would not make it.
And when he died in Minnesota,
we smelled and smelled his paws,
arthritic and untouchable these last many years,
took those marvelous paws up into our faces.
They smelled of dark clay
and sweet flower bloom decay.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by Jane Varley, whose most recent book
is a memoir, Flood Stage and Rising, University
of Nebraska Press, 2005. Poem reprinted from Poems &
Plays, No. 16, 2009, by permission of Jane Varley
and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2011 by The
Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
313
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Go for a walk and part of whatever you walk through
rides back on your socks. Here Peter Everwine, a
California poet, tells us about the seeds that stick to
us, in all their beauty and variety.
Back from
the Fields
Until nightfall my son ran
in the fields,
looking for God knows what.
Flowers, perhaps. Odd birds on the wing.
Something to fill an empty spot.
Maybe a luminous angel
or a country girl with a secret dark.
He came back empty-handed,
or so I thought.
Now I find them:
thistles, goatheads,
the barbed weeds
all those with hooks or horns
the snaggle-toothed, the grinning ones
those wearing lantern jaws,
old ones in beards, leapers
in silk leggings, the multiple
pocked moons and spiny satellites, all those
with juices and saps
like the fingers of thieves
nation after nation of grasses
that dig in, that burrow, that hug winds
and grab handholds
in whatever lean place.
It’s been a good day.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2004 by Peter Everwine, whose most recent
book of poetry is From the Meadow: Selected and New
Poems, Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 2004. Poem
reprinted from The Place That Inhabits Us,
Sixteen Rivers Press, 2010, by permission of Peter
Everwine and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©
2011 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
312
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Ellery Akers is a California poet who
here brings all of us under a banner with one simple
word on it.
The Word
That Is a Prayer
One thing you know when you say it:
all over the earth people are saying it with you;
a child blurting it out as the seizures take her,
a woman reciting it on a cot in a hospital.
What if you take a cab through the Tenderloin:
at a street light, a man in a wool cap,
yarn unraveling across his face, knocks at the window;
he says, Please.
By the time you hear what he’s saying,
the light changes, the cab pulls away,
and you don’t go back, though you know
someone just prayed to you the way you pray.
Please: a word so short
it could get lost in the air
as it floats up to God like the feather it is,
knocking and knocking, and finally
falling back to earth as rain,
as pellets of ice, soaking a black branch,
collecting in drains, leaching into the ground,
and you walk in that weather every day.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©1997 by Ellery Akers, whose most recent book
of poetry is Knocking on the Earth, Wesleyan
University Press, 1989. Reprinted from The Place
That Inhabits Us, Sixteen Rivers Press, 2010, by
permission of Ellery Akers and the publishers.
Introduction copyright © 2011 by The Poetry Foundation.
The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
311
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Peggy Shumaker lives in Alaska, but she gets around the
world. Here she takes us with her on a ninety-foot dive
into colorful mid-Pacific waters.
Night Dive
Plankton rise toward the full moon
spread thin on Wakaya’s surface.
Manta rays’ great curls of jaw
scoop backward somersaults of ocean
in through painted caves of their mouths, out
through sliced gills. Red sea fans
pulse. The leopard shark
lounges on a smooth ramp of sand,
skin jeweled with small hangers-on.
Pyramid fish point the way to the surface.
Ninety feet down, blue ribbon eels cough,
their mouths neon cautions.
Ghost pipefish curl in the divemaster’s palm.
Soft corals unfurl rainbow polyps, thousands
of mouths held open to night.
Currents’ communion—giant clams
slam shut wavy jaws, send
shivers of water. Christmas tree worms
snap back, flat spirals tight,
living petroglyphs against the night.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2010 by Peggy Shumaker from her most recent
book of poetry, Gnawed Bones, Red Hen Press,
2010. Reprinted by permission of Peggy Shumaker and the
publisher. Introduction copyright © 2011 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
310
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
A friend saw a refrigerator magnet that read, PARENTING:
THE FIRST 40 YEARS ARE THE HARDEST. And lots of parents,
thinking their children have moved on, discover one day
that those children are back. Here Marilyn L. Taylor,
Poet Laureate of Wisconsin, writes of that.
Home Again, Home Again
The children are back, the children are back—
They’ve come to take refuge, exhale and unpack;
The marriage has faltered, the job has gone bad,
Come open the door for them, Mother and Dad.
The city apartment is leaky and cold,
The landlord lascivious, greedy and old—
The mattress is lumpy, the oven’s encrusted,
The freezer, the fan, and the toilet have rusted.
The company caved, the boss went broke,
The job and the love affair, all up in smoke.
The anguish of loneliness comes as a shock—
O heart in the doldrums, O
heart in hock.
And so they return with their piles of possessions,
Their terrified cats and their mournful expressions,
Reclaiming the bedrooms they had in their teens,
Clean towels, warm comforter, glass figurines.
Downstairs in the kitchen the father and mother
Don’t say a word, but they look at each other
As down from the hill comes Jill, comes Jack.
The children are back. The
children are back.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by Marilyn L. Taylor, whose most recent
book of poetry is Going Wrong, Parallel Press,
2009. Poem reprinted from Wisconsin Poets Laureate, Marsh
River Editions, 2009, by permission of Marilyn L. Taylor
and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2011 by The
Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
309
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I love poems that celebrate families, and
here’s a fine one by Joyce Sutphen of Minnesota, a poet
who has written dozens of poems I’d like to publish in
this column if there only were weeks enough for all of
them.
The Aunts
I like it when they get together
and talk in voices that sound
like apple trees and grape vines,
and some of them wear hats
and go to Arizona in the winter,
and they all like to play cards.
They will always be the ones
who say “It is time to go now,”
even as we linger at the door,
or stand by the waiting cars, they
remember someone—an uncle we
never knew—and sigh, all
of them together, like wind
in the oak trees behind the farm
where they grew up—a place
I remember—especially
the hen house and the soft
clucking that filled the sunlit yard.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2010 by Joyce Sutphen from her most recent
book of poetry, First Words, Red Dragonfly
Press, 2010. Poem reprinted by permission of Joyce
Sutphen and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2011
by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted
Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant
in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We
do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
308
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Connie Wanek is one of my favorite poets. She lives in
Duluth and has a keen eye for what goes on around her.
Here’s a locked and loaded scene from rural America.
Mysterious Neighbors
Country people rise early
as their distant lights testify.
They don’t hold water in common. Each house
has a personal source, like a bank account,
a stone vault. Some share eggs,
some share expertise,
and some won’t even wave.
A walk for the mail elevates the heart rate.
Last November I saw a woman down the road
walk out to her mailbox dressed in blaze orange
cap to boot, a cautious soul.
Bullets can’t read her No Trespassing sign.
Strange to think they’re in the air
like lead bees with a fatal sting.
Our neighbor across the road sits in his kitchen
with his rifle handy and the window open.
You never know when. Once
he shot a trophy with his barrel resting on the sill.
He’s in his seventies, born here, joined the Navy,
came back. Hard work never hurt a man
until suddenly he was another broken tool.
His silhouette against the dawn
droops as though drought-stricken, each step
deliberate, down the driveway to his black mailbox,
prying it open. Checking a trap.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2010 by Connie Wanek whose most recent book
of poetry is On Speaking Terms, Copper Canyon
Press, 2010. Reprinted from New Ohio Review,
No. 7, Spring 2010, by permission of Connie Wanek and
the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2009 by The
Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
307
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I like this poem by 97-year-old Lois
Beebe Hayna of Colorado for the way it captures
restrained speech. The speaker spends most of her words
in describing a season, but behind the changes of spring
another significant change is suggested.
Brief Eden
For part of one strange year we lived
in a small house at the edge of a wood.
No neighbors, which suited us. Nobody
to ask questions. Except
for the one big question we went on
asking ourselves.
That spring
myriads of birds stopped over
briefly. Birds we’d never seen before, drawn
to our leafy quiet and our brook and because,
as we later learned, the place lay beneath
a flyway. Flocks appeared overnight—birds
brilliant or dull, with sharp beaks
or crossed bills, birds small
and enormous, all of them pausing
to gorge at the feeder, to rest their wings,
and disappear. Each flock seemed surer than we
of a destination. By the time we’d watched them
wing north in spring, then make
an anxious autumn return,
we too had pulled it together and we too moved
into what seemed to be our lives.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by Lois Beebe Hayna, whose most recent
book of poems is Keeping Still, Higganum Hill
Books, 2005. Poem reprinted from The Greensboro
Review, No. 86, Fall 2009, by permission of Lois
Beebe Hayna and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©
2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
306
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
My grandmother Moser made wonderful cherry pies from
fruit from a tree just across the road from her house,
and I have loved fruit trees ever since. A cherry tree
is all about giving. Here’s a poem by Nathaniel Perry,
who lives in Virginia, giving us an orchard made of
words.
Remaking a Neglected Orchard
It was a good idea, cutting away
the vines and ivy, trimming back
the chest-high thicket lazy years
had let grow there. Though it wasn’t for lack
of love for the trees, I’d like to point out.
Years love trees in a way we can’t
imagine. They just don’t use the fruit
like us; they want instead the slant
of sun through narrow branches, the buckshot
of rain on these old cherries. And we,
now that I think on it, want those
things too, we just always and desperately
want the sugar of the fruit, the best
we’ll get from this irascible land:
sweetness we can gather for years,
new stains staining the stains on our hands.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2010 by Nathaniel Perry, and reprinted from
Gettysburg Review, Vol. 23, no. 1, Spring 2010, by
permission of Nathaniel Perry and the publisher. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
305
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
The great Spanish artist Pablo Picasso
said that, in his subjects, he kept the joy of
discovery, the pleasure of the unexpected. In this poem
celebrating Picasso, Tim Nolan, an attorney in
Minneapolis, says the world will disclose such pleasures
to us, too, if only we pay close attention.
Picasso
How can we believe he did it—
every day—for all those years?
We remember how the musicians
gathered for him—and the prostitutes
arranged themselves the way he wanted—
and even the helmeted monkeys
with their little toy car cerebella—
posed—and the fish on the plate—
remained after he ate the fish—
Bones—What do we do with this
life?—except announce: Joy.
Joy. Joy—from the lead—
to the oil—to the stretch of bright
canvas—stretched—to the end of it all.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2008 by Tim Nolan, whose most recent book of
poetry is The Sound of It, New Rivers Press,
2008. Poem reprinted from Water~Stone Review,
Vol. 11, Fall 2008, by permission of Tim Nolan and the
publisher. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served
as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to
the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept
unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
304
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
After my mother died, one of the most
difficult tasks for my sister and me was to take the
clothes she’d made for herself to a thrift shop. In this
poem, Frannie Lindsay, a Massachusetts poet, remembers a
similar experience.
The
Thrift Shop Dresses
I slid the white louvers shut so I could stand in your
closet
a little while among the throng of flowered dresses
you hadn’t worn in years, and touch the creases
on each of their sleeves that smelled of forgiveness
and even though you would still be alive a few more days
I knew they were ready to let themselves be
packed into liquor store boxes simply
because you had asked that of them,
and dropped at the door of the Salvation Army
without having noticed me
wrapping my arms around so many at once
that one slipped a big padded shoulder off of its hanger
as if to return the embrace.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by Frannie Lindsay, from her most recent
book of poems, Mayweed, The Word Works, 2009,
and reprinted by permission of Frannie Lindsay and the
publisher. The poem first appeared in the Harvard
Divinity Bulletin, Vol. 34, no. 1, Winter
2009. Introduction copyright ©2010 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
303
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
There’s something wonderfully sweet about a wife cutting
a husband’s hair, and Bruce Guernsey, who lives in
Illinois and Maine, captures it beautifully in this
poem.
For My
Wife Cutting My Hair
You move around me expertly like the good, round
Italian barber I went to in Florence,
years before we met, his scissors
a razor he sharpened on a belt.
But at first when you were learning, I feared
for my neck, saw my ears like sliced fruit
on the newspapered floor. Taking us back in time,
you cleverly clipped my head in a flat-top.
The years in between were styles no one had ever seen,
or should see again: when the wind rose
half my hair floated off in feathers,
the other half bristling, brief as a brush.
In the chair, almost asleep, I hear the bright
scissors dancing. Hear you hum, full-breasted as Aida,
carefully trimming the white from my temples,
so no one, not even I, will know.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2011 by Bruce Guernsey, whose most recent
book of poems is New England Primer, Cherry
Grove Collection, 2008. Reprinted from the Spoon
River Poetry Review, Vol. XXXV, No. 2, Summer/Fall
2010, by permission of Bruce Guernsey and the
publisher. Introduction copyright ©2010 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
302
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
In Iowa in the 1950’s, when we at last
heard about pizza, my mother decided to make one for us.
She rolled out bread dough, put catsup on it, and baked
it. Voila! Pizza! And inexpensive, too. Here’s Grace
Cavalieri, a poet and playwright who lives in Maryland,
serving something similar and undoubtedly better.
Tomato
Pies, 25 Cents
Tomato pies are what we called them, those days,
before Pizza came in,
at my Grandmother’s restaurant,
in Trenton New Jersey.
My grandfather is rolling meatballs
in the back. He studied to be a priest in Sicily but
saved his sister Maggie from marrying a bad guy
by coming to America.
Uncle Joey is rolling dough and spooning sauce.
Uncle Joey, is always scrubbed clean,
sobered up, in a white starched shirt, after
cops delivered him home just hours before.
The waitresses are helping
themselves to handfuls of cash out of the drawer,
playing the numbers with Moon Mullin
and Shad, sent in from Broad Street. 1942,
tomato pies with cheese, 25 cents.
With anchovies, large, 50 cents.
A whole dinner is 60 cents (before 6 pm).
How the soldiers, bussed in from Fort Dix,
would stand outside all the way down Warren Street,
waiting for this new taste treat,
young guys in uniform,
lined up and laughing, learning Italian,
before being shipped out to fight the last great war.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2010 by Grace Cavalieri from her most recent
book of poetry, Sounds Like Something I Would Say, Goss
183 Casa Menendez, 2010. Reprinted by permission of
Grace Cavalieri and the publisher. Introduction
copyright ©2010 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
301
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Some of us are fortunate to find companions among the
other creatures, and in this poem by T. Alan Broughton
of Vermont, we sense a kind of friendship without
dependency between our species and another.
Great Blue Heron
I drive past him each day in the swamp where he stands
on one leg, hunched as if dreaming of his own form
the surface reflects. Often I nearly forget to turn
left,
buy fish and wine, be home in time to cook and chill.
Today the bird stays with me, as if I am moving through
the heron’s dream to share his sky or water—places
he will rise into on slow flapping wings or where
his long bill darts to catch unwary frogs. I’ve seen
his slate blue feathers lift him as dangling legs
fold back, I’ve seen him fly through the dying sun
and out again, entering night, entering my own sleep.
I only know this bird by a name we’ve wrapped him in,
and when I stand on my porch, fish in the broiler,
wine glass sweating against my palm, glint of sailboats
tacking home on dusky water, I try to imagine him
slowly descending to his nest, wise as he was
or ever will be, filling each moment with that moment’s
act or silence, and the evening folds itself around me.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2010 by T. Alan Broughton from his most
recent book of poetry, A World Remembered,
Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2010. Reprinted by
permission of T. Alan Broughton and the
publisher. Introduction copyright ©2010 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
300
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
This is our 300th column, and we thank you for
continuing to support us. I realized a while back that
there have been over 850 moons that have gone through
their phases since I arrived on the earth, and I haven’t
taken the time to look at nearly enough of them. Here
Molly Fisk, a California poet, gives us one of those
many moons that you and I may have failed to observe.
Hunter's Moon
Early December, dusk, and the sky
slips down the rungs of its blue ladder
into indigo. A late-quarter moon hangs
in the air above the ridge like a broken plate
and shines on us all, on the new deputy
almost asleep in his four-by-four,
lulled by the crackling song of the dispatcher,
on the bartender, slowly wiping a glass
and racking it, one eye checking the game.
It shines down on the fox’s red and grey life,
as he stills, a shadow beside someone’s gate,
listening to winter. Its pale gaze caresses
the lovers, curled together under a quilt,
dreaming alone, and shines on the scattered
ashes of terrible fires, on the owl’s black flight,
on the whelks, on the murmuring kelp,
on the whale that washed up six weeks ago
at the base of the dunes, and it shines
on the backhoe that buried her.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2000 by Molly Fisk, whose most recent book of
poetry is The More Difficult Beauty, Hip Pocket
Press, 2010. Poem reprinted from The Place That
Inhabits Us, Sixteen Rivers Press, 2010, by
permission of Molly Fisk and the publisher. Introduction
copyright ©2010 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
299
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Here’s a poem by Christopher Todd Matthews that I
especially like for the depiction of the little boy who
makes more of a snowball than we would have expected was
there. This poet lives in Lexington, Virginia.
Eating Them As He Came
Dark by five, the day gives up and so do I,
stalled at the top of the stairs I forget what for,
adrift in a scrap of dream that’s not a dream
exactly but a stupor, unrefined. I go astray
in old routines, I dare myself to reconstruct
the rules of old invented games—that one
of throwing snowballs at the roof, to watch them
shrink as they rolled down, spinning to their pits,
to see the force that made them briefly a thing
so neatly undone. Today an old friend’s tiny boy
lobbied me to pitch some snowballs at him. I bowed
to his dense little will. But planned to miss.
As I packed and flung each one to its unpacking,
he hunted down the humble bits and crumbs
of every impact, as they ran from him along
the icy slope, and gathered and carried them
back to me at the top. Eating them as he came.
So that’s how you get to the marrow of breakdown.
I forgot. That you could put what’s left to your lips.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by Christopher Todd Matthews and
reprinted from West Branch, No. 65, Fall/Winter
2009, by permission of Christopher Todd Matthews and the
publisher. Introduction copyright ©2010 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
298
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
At any given moment, there must be 100,000 of us trying
to fit in, and finding it next to impossible. Here’s a
wonderful portrayal of that difficulty, by Cristin
O’Keefe Aptowicz, who lives in Astoria, New York.
At the
Office Holiday Party
I can now confirm that I am not just fatter
than everyone I work with, but I’m also fatter
than all their spouses. Even the heavily bearded
bear in accounting has a little otter-like boyfriend.
When my co-workers brightly introduce me
as “the funny one in the office,” their spouses
give them a look which translates to, Well, duh,
then they both wait for me to say something funny.
A gaggle of models comes shrieking into the bar
to further punctuate why I sometimes hate living
in this city. They glitter, a shiny gang of scissors.
I don’t know how to look like I’m not struggling.
Sometimes on the subway back to Queens,
I can tell who’s staying on past the Lexington stop
because I have bought their shoes before at Payless.
They are shoes that fool absolutely no one.
Everyone wore their special holiday party outfits.
It wasn’t until I arrived at the bar that I realized
my special holiday party outfit was exactly the same
as the outfits worn by the restaurant’s busboys.
While I’m standing in line for the bathroom,
another patron asks if I’m there to clean it.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz from her
most recent book of poetry, Everything is
Everything, Write Bloody Publishing, 2010.
Reprinted by permission of Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz and
the publisher. First printed in Rattle, Vol.
15, no. 2, Winter 2009. Introduction copyright ©2010 by
The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted
Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant
in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We
do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
297
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
To be stumped by the very last crossword puzzle you ever
will work on, well, that’s defeat, but a small and
amusing defeat. Here George Bilgere, a poet from Ohio,
gives us a picture of his mother’s last day on earth.
Blank
When I came to my mother’s house
the day after she had died
it was already a museum of her
unfinished gestures. The mysteries
from the public library, due
in two weeks. The half-eaten square
of lasagna in the fridge.
The half-burned wreckage
of her last cigarette,
and one red swallow
of wine in a lipsticked
glass beside her chair.
Finally, a blue Bic
on a couple of downs
and acrosses left blank
in the Sunday crossword,
which actually had the audacity
to look a little smug
at having, for once, won.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2010 by George Bilgere from his most recent
book of poems, The White Museum, Autumn House
Press, 2010. Reprinted by permission of George Bilgere
and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2010 by The
Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
296
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Those of us who live in the country equate the word
“development” with displacement, and it has often been
said that subdivisions are named for what they replace,
like Woodland Glade. Here’s a writer from my state,
Nebraska, Stephen Behrendt, with a poem about what some
call progress.
Developing the Land
For six nights now the cries have sounded in the
pasture:
coyote voices fluting across the greening rise to the
east
where the deer have almost ceased to pass
now that the developers have carved up yet another
section,
filled another space with spars and studs, concrete,
runoff.
Five years ago you saw two spotted fawns rise
for the first time from brome where brick mailboxes will
stand;
only three years past came great horned owls
who raised two squeaking, downy owlets
that perished in the traffic, skimming too low across
the road
behind some swift, more fortunate cottontail.
It was on an August afternoon that you drove in,
curling down our long gravel drive past pasture and
creek,
that you saw, flickering at the edge of your sight,
three mounted Indians, motionless in the paused breeze,
who vanished when you turned your head.
We have felt the presence on this land of others,
of some who paused here, some who passed, who have left
in the thick clay shards and splinters of themselves
that we dig up,
turn up with spade and tine when we garden or bury our
animals;
their voices whisper on moonless nights in the back
pasture hollow
where the horses snort and nicker, wary with alarm.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2005 by Stephen C. Behrendt from his most
recent book of poetry, History, Mid-List Press,
2005. Reprinted by permission of Stephen C. Behrendt and
the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2010 by The
Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
295
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
The first poem we published in this column, back in the
spring of 2005, was by David Allan Evans, the Poet
Laureate of South Dakota, and it’s good to publish
another one today, having recently had our five-year
anniversary.
Girl
Riding a Horse in a Field of Sunflowers
Sitting perfectly upright,
contented and pensive,
she holds in one hand,
loosely, the reins of summer:
the green of trees and bushes;
the blue of lake water;
the red of her jacket
and open collar; the brown
of her pinned-up hair,
and her horse, deep
in the yellow of sunflowers.
When she stops to rest,
summer rests.
When she decides to leave,
there goes summer
over the hill.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by David Allan Evans from his most
recent book of poems, This Water. These Rocks.
San Francisco Bay Press, 2009. Reprinted by permission
of David Allan Evans and the publisher. Introduction
copyright ©2010 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
294
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I’m fond of poems about weather, and I
especially like this poem by Todd Davis for the way it
looks at how fog affects whatever is within and beneath
it.
Veil
In this low place between mountains
fog settles with the dark of evening.
Every year it takes some of those
we love—a car full of teenagers
on the way home from a dance, or
a father on his way to the paper mill,
nightshift the only opening.
Each morning, up on the ridge,
the sun lifts this veil, sees what night
has accomplished. The water on our window—
screens disappears slowly, gradually,
like grief. The heat of the day carries water
from the river back up into the sky,
and where the fog is heaviest and stays
longest, you’ll see the lines it leaves
on trees, the flowers that grow
the fullest.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2007 by Todd Davis from his most recent book
of poems, The Least of These, Michigan State
University Press, 2010. Reprinted by permission of Todd
Davis and the publisher. Poem first appeared in
Albatross, No. 18, 2007. Introduction copyright
©2010 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
293
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
It’s a rare occasion when I find dozens
of poems by just one poet that I’d like to share with
you, but Joyce Sutphen, who lives in Minnesota, is
someone who writes that well, with that kind of appeal.
Here is just one example. How many of us have marveled
at how well our parents have succeeded at a long
marriage?
The Exam
It is mid-October. The trees are in
their autumnal glory (red, yellow-green,
orange) outside the classroom where students
take the mid-term, sniffling softly as if
identifying lines from Blake or Keats
was such sweet sorrow, summoned up in words
they never saw before. I am thinking
of my parents, of the six decades they’ve
been together, of the thirty thousand
meals they’ve eaten in the kitchen, of the
more than twenty thousand nights they’ve slept
under the same roof. I am wondering
who could have fashioned the test that would have
predicted this success? Who could have known?
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2010 by Joyce Sutphen, whose most recent book
of poetry is First Words, Red Dragonfly Press,
2010. Poem reprinted by permission of Joyce Sutphen.
Introduction copyright ©2010 by The Poetry Foundation.
The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
292
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Here’s our Halloween poem for this year,
in the thin dry voice of a ghost, as captured by Katie
Cappello who lives in Northern California.
A Ghost
Abandons the Haunted
You ignore the way light filters through my cells,
the way I have of fading out—still
there is a constant tug, a stretching,
what is left of me is coming loose. Soon,
I will be only crumbs of popcorn,
a blue ring in the tub, an empty
toilet paper roll, black mold
misted on old sponges,
strands of hair woven into
carpet, a warped door
that won’t open, the soft spot
in an avocado, celery, a pear,
a metallic taste in the beer, a cold sore
on your lip—and when I finally lose my hold
you will hear a rustle and watch me spill
grains of rice across the cracked tile.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by Katie Cappello, from her first book
of poetry, Perpetual Care, Elixir Press, 2009.
Reprinted by permission of Katie Cappello and the
publisher. Introduction copyright ©2010 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
291
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I have three dogs and they are always insisting on one
thing or another. Having a dog is like having a
dictator. In this poem by Mark Smith-Soto, who teaches
in North Carolina, his dog Chico is very much like my
dogs, demanding human company on whatever mission they
choose to pursue.
Night Watch
Chico whines, no reason why. Just now walked,
dinner gobbled, head and ears well scratched.
And yet he whines, looking up at me as if confused
at my just sitting here, typing away, while darkness
is stalking the back yard. How can I be so blind,
he wants to know, how sad, how tragic, how I
won’t listen before it is too late. His whines are
refugees from a brain where time and loss have
small dominion, but where the tyranny of now
is absolute. I get up and throw open the kitchen door,
and he disappears down the cement steps, barking
deeper and darker than I remember. I follow
to find him perfectly still in the empty yard—
the two of us in the twilight, standing guard.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by Mark Smith-Soto, whose most recent
book of poetry is Any Second Now, Main Street
Rag Publishing Co., 2006. Poem reprinted from Poetry
East, Nos. 64 & 65, Spring 2009, by permission of
Mark Smith-Soto and the publisher. Introduction
copyright ©2010 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
290
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
During our more than four years of publishing this
column we’ve shown you a number of poems about
motherhood. Here’s another, beautifully observed by Liz
Rosenberg, who lives in New York State.
I Leave
Her Weeping
I leave her weeping in her barred little bed,
her warm hand clutching at my hand,
but she doesn’t want a kiss, or to hug the dog
goodnight—
she keeps crying mommy, uhhh, mommy,
with her lovely crumpled face
like a golden piece of paper I am throwing away.
We have been playing for hours,
and now we need to stop, and she does not want
to. She is counting on me to lower the boom
that is her heavy body, and settle her down.
I rub her ribcage, I arrange the blankets around her
hips.
Downstairs are lethal phonecalls I have to answer.
Friends
dying, I need to call.
My daughter may be weeping all my tears,
I only know
that even this young
and lying on her side,
her head uplifted like a cupped tulip,
sometimes she needs to cry.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by Liz Rosenberg, whose most recent book
of poetry is Demon Love, Mammoth Press, 2009.
Poem reprinted from Paterson Literary Review,
Issue 37/2009-2010, by permission of Liz Rosenberg and
the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2010 by The
Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
289
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
There’s only so much we can do to better ourselves, and
once we’ve done what we can, it still may not have been
enough. Here’s a poem by Michelle Y. Burke, who lives in
N.Y., in which a man who does everything right doesn’t
quite do everything right.
Nocturne
A man can give up so much,
can limit himself to handwritten correspondence,
to foods made of whole grains,
to heat from a woodstove, logs
hewn by his own hand and stacked neatly
like corpses by the backdoor.
He can play nocturnes by heart.
They will not make the beloved appear.
He can learn the names of all the birds
in the valley. Not one
will be enticed to learn his.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by Michelle Y. Burke and reprinted from
Lake Effect, Vol. 13, Spring 2009, by
permission of Michelle Y. Burke and the publisher.
Introduction copyright ©2010 by The Poetry Foundation.
The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
288
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I’ve spent my seventy years on The Great
Plains and have lived all that time amidst vivid and
touching stories about the settlement of our area, lots
of them much like this one, about a long ago courtship
and marriage, offered to us in a poem by James Doyle,
who lives in Colorado.
Love Story
The kitchen door opens onto dirt
and the second half of the country
all the way to the Pacific. Rusted
prairie trains out of the tall weeds
elbow the last century aside, rumble
from every direction towards Chicago.
My great-grandfather, who would be
150 years old today, put on his one
tall hat and took the big trip
to Omaha for my great-grandma
with the family ring on his vest
and winter wheat lying wait in seed.
He gave her all the miles he had
and she gave him the future I walk
around in every day. The mountains
were too far west to count so they
doubled back over the land and century
and the real weather kept coming from them.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by James Doyle, whose most recent book
of poetry is Bending Under the Yellow Police Tapes,
Steel Toe Books, 2007. Poem reprinted from the
Nimrod International Journal, Vol. 53, no. 1,
Fall/Winter 2009, by permission of James Doyle and the
publisher. Introduction copyright ©2010 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
287
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I love to sit outside and be very still
until some little creature appears and begins to go
about its business, and here is another poet, Robert
Gibb, of Pennsylvania, doing just the same thing.
For the Chipmunk in My Yard
I think he knows I’m alive, having come down
The three steps of the back porch
And given me a good once over. All afternoon
He’s been moving back and forth,
Gathering odd bits of walnut shells and twigs,
While all about him the great fields tumble
To the blades of the thresher. He’s lucky
To be where he is, wild with all that happens.
He’s lucky he’s not one of the shadows
Living in the blond heart of the wheat.
This autumn when trees bolt, dark with the fires
Of starlight, he’ll curl among their roots,
Wanting nothing but the slow burn of matter
On which he fastens like a small, brown flame.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. From
What the Heart Can Bear by Robert Gibb. Poem
copyright ©2009 by Robert Gibb. Reprinted by permission
of the author and Autumn House Press. Introduction
copyright ©2010 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
286
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
One of my friends told me he’d seen a refrigerator
magnet that read, PARENTING; THE FIRST 40 YEARS ARE THE
HARDEST. Here’s a fine poem about parenthood, and about
letting go of children, by Chana Bloch, who lives in
Berkeley, California.
Through a
Glass
On the crown of his head
where the fontanelle pulsed
between spongy bones,
a bald spot is forming, globed and sleek
as a monk’s tonsure.
I was the earliest pinch of civilization,
the one who laced him
into shoe leather
when he stumbled into walking upright.
“Shoes are unfair to children,” he’d grouse.
Through a pane of glass
that shivers when the wind kicks up
I watch my son walk away.
He’s out the door, up the street, around
a couple of corners by now.
I’m in for life.
He trips; my hand flies out;
I yank it back.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by Chana Bloch from her most recent book
of poems, Blood Honey, Autumn House Press,
2009, and reprinted by permission of Chana Bloch and
Autumn House Press. Introduction copyright ©2010 by The
Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
285
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
In our busy times, the briefest pause to express a
little interest in the natural world is praiseworthy.
Most of us spend our time thinking about other people,
and scarcely any time thinking about other creatures. I
recently co-edited an anthology of poems about birds,
and we looked through lots of books and magazines, but
here is a fine poem we missed, by Tara Bray, who lives
in Richmond, Virginia.
Once
I climbed the roll of hay to watch the heron
in the pond. He waded a few steps out,
then back, thrusting his beak under water,
pulling it up empty, but only once.
Later I walked the roads for miles, certain
he’d be there when I returned. How is it for him,
day after day, his brittle legs rising
from warm green scum, his graceful neck curled,
damp in the bright heat? It’s a dull world.
Every day, the same roads, the sky,
the dust, the barn caving into itself,
the tin roof twisted and scattered in the yard.
Again, the bank covered with oxeye daisy
that turns to spiderwort, to chicory,
and at last to goldenrod. Each year, the birds—
thick in the air and darting in wild numbers—
grow quiet, the grasses thin, the light leaves
earlier each day. The heron stood
stone-still on my spot when I returned.
And then, his wings burst open, lifting the steel-
blue rhythm of his body into flight.
I touched the warm hay. Hoping for a trace
of his wild smell, I cupped my hands over
my face: nothing but the heat of fields
and skin. It wasn’t long before the world
began to breathe the beat of ordinary hours,
stretching out again beneath the sky.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2006 by Tara Bray, and reprinted from her
most recent book of poems, Mistaken for Song,
Persea Books, Inc., 2009, by permission of the
publisher. Introduction copyright ©2010 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
284
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I’d guess there are lots of people, like me, who
sometimes visit places which in memory are hallowed but
which, through time, have been changed irreparably. It
is a painful experience but it underlines life. Here
Carl Little, who lives in Maine, returns to a place like
that.
The
Clearing
The sunbox lies in pieces,
its strips of aluminum foil
flaking away to the wind,
tanning platform broken up
for kindling. Planted grass
sprouts where the path once
sharply turned to the left
circumventing underbrush,
there the man (a boy then)
stumbled on beauty’s wrath:
pale sisters yelling him off,
scrambling for clothes to cover.
All has been cleared, thick
cat briar raked into piles
and set ablaze, invincible
ailanthus stacked for dump.
All’s clear and calm save
his childhood rushing head-
long through tearing thickets,
and the sisters, barely glimpsed
against reflective flashing,
laughing after him, then
lying back to catch
all the sullen autumn sun they can.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2006 by Carl Little and reprinted from
Ocean Drinker: New and Selected Poems, Deerbrook
Editions, 2006, by permission of Carl Little and the
publisher. Introduction copyright ©2010 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
283
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I’ve read dozens of poems written about the events of
September 11, 2001, but this one by Tony Gloeggler of
New York City is the only one I’ve seen that addresses
the good fortune of a survivor.
Five
Years Later
My brother was on his way
to a dental appointment
when the second plane hit
four stories below the office
where he worked. He’s never
said anything about the guy
who took football bets, how
he liked to watch his secretary
walk, the friends he ate lunch with,
all the funerals. Maybe, shamed
by his luck, he keeps quiet,
afraid someone might guess
how good he feels, breathing.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by Tony Gloeggler, whose most recent
book of poetry is The Last Lie, New York
Quarterly Books, 2010. Poem reprinted from Paterson
Literary Review, Issue 37, 2009/2010, by permission
of Tony Gloeggler and the publisher. Introduction
copyright ©2010 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
282
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Because I’m a senior citizen I’m easily attracted by
poems about my brothers and sisters meandering into
their golden years. Here’s a poem by Edward Hirsch, who
lives in New York, that offers our younger readers a
look at what’s to come.
Early Sunday Morning
I used to mock my father and his chums
for getting up early on Sunday morning
and drinking coffee at a local spot
but now I’m one of those chumps.
No one cares about my old humiliations
but they go on dragging through my sleep
like a string of empty tin cans rattling
behind an abandoned car.
It’s like this: just when you think
you have forgotten that red-haired girl
who left you stranded in a parking lot
forty years ago, you wake up
early enough to see her disappearing
around the corner of your dream
on someone else’s motorcycle
roaring onto the highway at sunrise.
And so now I’m sitting in a dimly lit
café full of early morning risers
where the windows are covered with soot
and the coffee is warm and bitter.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also
supported by the Department of English at the University
of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2009 by Edward
Hirsch from his most recent book of poetry, The Living
Fire, Knopf, 2010. First printed in the Northwest Review
, Vol. 47, no. 7, 2009, and reprinted by permission of
Edward Hirsch and the publisher. Introduction copyright
©2010 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
281
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Anton Chekhov, the master of the short story, was able
to see whole worlds within the interactions of simple
Russian peasants, and in this little poem by Leo Dangel,
who grew up in rural South Dakota, something similar
happens.
One
September Afternoon
Home from town
the two of them sit
looking over what they have bought
spread out on the kitchen table
like gifts to themselves.
She holds a card of buttons
against the new dress material
and asks if they match.
The hay is dry enough to rake,
but he watches her
empty the grocery bag.
He reads the label
on a grape jelly glass
and tries on
the new straw hat again.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©1987 by Leo Dangel, whose most recent book of
poetry is The Crow on the Golden Arches, Spoon
River Poetry Press, 2004. Poem reprinted from
Paddlefish, No. 3, 2009, by permission of Leo
Dangel and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2009
by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted
Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant
in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We
do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column 280
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Marilyn Kallet lives and teaches in Tennessee. Over the
years I have read many poems about fireflies, but of all
of them hers seems to offer the most and dearest peace.
Fireflies
In the dry summer field at nightfall,
fireflies rise like sparks.
Imagine the presence of ghosts
flickering, the ghosts of young friends,
your father nearest in the distance.
This time they carry no sorrow,
no remorse, their presence is so light.
Childhood comes to you,
memories of your street in lamplight,
holding those last moments before bed,
capturing lightning-bugs,
with a blossom of the hand
letting them go. Lightness returns,
an airy motion over the ground
you remember from Ring Around the Rosie.
If you stay, the fireflies become fireflies
again, not part of your stories,
as unaware of you as sleep, being
beautiful and quiet all around you.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by Marilyn Kallet, from her most recent
book of poetry, Packing Light: New and Selected
Poems, Black Widow Press, 2009. Reprinted by
permission of Marilyn Kallet. The introduction's author,
Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate
Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from
2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
279
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Rhyming has a way of brightening a poem,
and a depressing subject can become quite a bit lighter
with well-chosen rhymes. Here’s a sonnet by Mary Meriam,
who lives in Missouri. Are there readers among you who
have felt like this?
The Romance of Middle Age
Now that I’m fifty, let me take my showers
at night, no light, eyes closed. And let me swim
in cover-ups. My skin’s tattooed with hours
and days and decades, head to foot, and slim
is just a faded photograph. It’s strange
how people look away who once would look.
I didn’t know I’d undergo this change
and be the unseen cover of a book
whose plot, though swift, just keeps on getting thicker.
One reaches for the pleasures of the mind
and heart to counteract the loss of quicker
knowledge. One feels old urgencies unwind,
although I still pluck chin hairs with a tweezer,
in case I might attract another geezer.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by Mary Meriam, whose most recent book
of poetry is The Countess of Flatbroke,
(afterword by Lillian Faderman), Modern Metrics/Exot
Books, 2006. Poem reprinted from Rattle,
Vol. 15, no. 2, Winter 2009, by permission of Mary
Meriam and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2010
by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted
Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant
in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We
do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
278
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Peter Everwine is a California poet whose
work I have admired for almost as long as I have been
writing. Here he beautifully captures a quiet moment of
reflection.
Rain
Toward evening, as the light failed
and the pear tree at my window darkened,
I put down my book and stood at the open door,
the first raindrops gusting in the eaves,
a smell of wet clay in the wind.
Sixty years ago, lying beside my father,
half asleep, on a bed of pine boughs as rain
drummed against our tent, I heard
for the first time a loon’s sudden wail
drifting across that remote lake—
a loneliness like no other,
though what I heard as inconsolable
may have been only the sound of something
untamed and nameless
singing itself to the wilderness around it
and to us until we slept. And thinking of my father
and of good companions gone
into oblivion, I heard the steady sound of rain
and the soft lapping of water, and did not know
whether it was grief or joy or something other
that surged against my heart
and held me listening there so long and late.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2008 by Peter Everwine, whose most recent
book of poems is From the Meadow: Selected and New
Poems, Pitt Poetry Series, Univ. of Pittsburgh
Press, 2004. Reprinted from Ploughshares, Vol.
34, no. 1, Spring 2008, by permission of Peter Everwine
and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2010 by The
Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
277
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Here’s hoping that very few of our readers have to go
through cardiac rehab, which Thomas Reiter of New Jersey
captures in this poem, but if they do, here’s hoping
that they come through it feeling wildly alive and
singing at the tops of their lungs.
Rehab
We wear harnesses like crossing guards.
In a pouch over the heart,
over stent and bypass, a black
box with leads pressed onto metal
nipples. We pedal and tread and row
while our signals are picked up
by antennas on the ceiling, X’s
like the eyes cartoonists give the dead.
Angels of telemetry with vials of nitro
watch over us. We beam to their monitors
now a barn dance, now a moonwalk.
They cuff us and pump and we keep on
so tomorrow will live off today. Nurse,
we won’t forget the animated
video of our cholesterol highway
where LDL, black-hatted scowling
donut holes on wheels, blocked traffic.
But with muscles like gutta-percha,
can we leave time’s gurney in the dust?
By now only the dead know more about
gravity than we do. In reply, a tape
of Little Richard or Jerry Lee comes on
and we’re singing, aloud or not, all
pale infarcted pedalers, rowers, treadmillers,
and our hearts are rising in the east.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by Thomas Reiter, whose most recent book
of poems is Catchment, Louisiana State
University Press, 2009. Poem reprinted from The
Hudson Review, Vol. LXII, no. 2, 2009, by
permission of Thomas Reiter and the publisher.
Introduction copyright ©2010 by The Poetry Foundation.
The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
276
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I live in Nebraska, where we have a town named Homer.
Such a humble, homely name and, as it happens, the poet
Donal Heffernan is from Homer, and here’s his hymn to
the town and its history. Long live Homer. And while
we’re celebrating Nebraska towns, let’s throw in Edgar,
too.
My Hometown
Oh, Homer!
Your village sleeps near the Missouri River
With your cousin Winnebago, both children of Lakotaland.
You kept your town at two stories, as flat as the
surrounding prairie.
You taught the Iliad and Odyssey in honor of your
namesake poet.
Your spirit outlasted the bleached fields of the
Depression, and
Bravely swam against the raging Omaha Creek floods.
On warm, wet spring Saturday nights,
You provided dark places for your young
To launch your next generation
In pickups, unlighted.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by Donal Heffernan, whose most recent
book of poetry is Duets of Motion, Lone Oak
Press, 2001. Poem reprinted by permission of Donal
Heffernan. Introduction copyright ©2010 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column 275
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I recognize the couple who are introduced in this poem
by Patricia Frolander, of Sundance, Wyoming, and perhaps
you’ll recognize them, too.
Denial
He called it “his ranch,”
yet each winter day found her beside him
feeding hay to hungry cows.
In summer heat
you would find her in the hayfield—
cutting, raking, baling, stacking.
In between she kept the books,
cooked, cleaned
laundered, fed bum lambs.
Garden rows straight,
canned jars of food
lined cellar walls.
Then she died.
I asked him how he would manage.
“Just like I always have,” he said.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by Patricia Frolander, and reprinted
from her most recent book of poems, Grassland
Genealogy, Finishing Line Press, 2009, by
permission of Pat Frolander and the publisher.
Introduction copyright ©2010 by The Poetry Foundation.
The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column 274
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Alicia Suskin Ostriker is one of our country’s finest
poets. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey. I thought
that today you might like to have us offer you a poem
full of blessings.
The Blessing of the Old Woman, the Tulip, and the Dog
To be blessed
said the old woman
is to live and work
so hard
God’s love
washes right through you
like milk through a cow
To be blessed
said the dark red tulip
is to knock their eyes out
with the slug of lust
implied by
your up-ended skirt
To be blessed
said the dog
is to have a pinch
of God
inside you
and all the other
dogs can smell it
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. “The
Blessing of the Old Woman, the Tulip, and the Dog” from
The Book of Seventy, by Alicia Suskin Ostriker,
© 2009. All rights are controlled by the University of
Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA 15260. Used by
permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press.
Introduction copyright ©2010 by The Poetry Foundation.
The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column 273
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Equipment. I like to paint and draw, and
I own enough art supplies to start my own store. And for
every hobby there are lots of supplies that seem
essential. In this poem we get a whole tackle box full
of equipment from Michael Sowder, who lives and fishes
in Utah.
Fishing, His Birthday
With adams, caddis, tricos, light cahills,
blue-wing olives, royal coachmen, chartreuse trudes,
green drakes, blue duns, black gnats, Nancy quills,
Joe’s hoppers, yellow humpies, purple chutes,
prince nymphs, pheasant tails, Eileen’s hare’s ears,
telicos, flashbacks, Jennifer’s muddlers,
Frank bugs, sow bugs, zug bugs, autumn splendors,
woolly worms, black buggers, Kay’s gold zuddlers,
clippers, tippet, floatant, spools of leader,
tin shot, lead shot, hemostats, needle nose,
rod, reel, vest, net, boots, cap, shades and waders,
gortex shell and one bent Macanudo—
I wade in a swirl of May-colored water,
cast a fine gray quill, the last tie of my father.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by Michael Sowder, from his most recent
book of poetry, The Empty Boat, Truman State
University Press, 2004. Reprinted by permission of
Michael Sowder. Introduction copyright ©2010 by The
Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column 272
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Whether we like it or not, we live with the awareness
that death is always close at hand, and in this poem by
Don Thompson, a Californian, a dead blackbird can’t be
pushed out of the awareness of the speaker, nor can it
escape the ants, who have their own yard work to do.
Yard Work
My leaf blower lifted the blackbird—
wings still spread, weightless,
floating on the loud, electric wind
almost as if it were alive.
Three or four times it flew,
but fell again, sideslipped down
like a kite with no string,
so I gave up. . . I had work to do,
and when the dust I raised
had settled in that other world
under the rose bushes, the ants
came back to finish theirs.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by Don Thompson, and reprinted from his
most recent book of poems, Where We Live,
Parallel Press, 2009, by permission of Don Thompson and
the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2010 by The
Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
271
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Barnyard chickens, which are little more than reptiles
with feathers, can be counted on to kill those among
them who are malformed or diseased, but we humans,
advanced animals that we think we are, are far more
likely to just turn away from people who bear the scars
of misfortune. Here’s a poem by Ned Balbo, who lives and
teaches in Maryland.
Fire Victim
Once, boarding the train to New York City,
The aisle crowded and all seats filled, I glimpsed
An open space—more pushing, stuck in place—
And then saw why: a man, face peeled away,
Sewn back in haste, skin grafts that smeared like wax
Spattered and frozen, one eye flesh-filled, smooth,
One cold eye toward the window. Cramped, shoved hard,
I, too, passed up the seat, the place, and fought on
Through to the next car, and the next, but now
I wonder why the fire that could have killed him
Spared him, burns scarred over; if a life
Is what he calls this space through which he moves,
Dark space we dared not enter, and what fire
Burns in him when he sees us move away.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2005 by Ned Balbo, whose most recent book of
poetry is Something Must Happen, Finishing Line
Press, 2009. Poem reprinted from Lives of the
Sleepers, University of Notre Dame Press, 2005, by
permission of Ned Balbo and the publisher. Introduction
copyright ©2010 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
270
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
We are sometimes amazed by how well the
visually impaired navigate the world, but like the rest
of us, they have found a way to do what interests them.
Here Jan Mordenski of Michigan describes her mother,
absorbed in crocheting.
Crochet
Even after darkness closed her eyes
my mother could crochet.
Her hands would walk the rows of wool
turning, bending, to a woolen music.
The dye lots were registered in memory:
appleskin, chocolate, porcelain pan,
the stitches remembered like faded rhymes:
pineapple, sunflower, window pane, shell.
Tied to our lives those past years
by merely a soft colored yarn,
she’d sit for hours, her dark lips
moving as if reciting prayers,
coaching the sighted hands.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©1995 by Jan Mordenski, and reprinted from
“Quiet Music: A Plainsong Reader,” Plainsong Press,
1995, by permission of Jan Mordenski and the publisher.
Introduction copyright ©2010 by The Poetry Foundation.
The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
269
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
It is enough for me as a reader that a poem take from
life a single moment and hold it up for me to look at.
There need not be anything sensational or unusual or
peculiar about that moment, but somehow, by directing my
attention to it, our attention to it, the poet bathes it
in the light of the remarkable. Here is a poem like this
by Carolyn Miller, who lives in San Francisco.
The World as It is
No ladders, no descending angels, no voice
out of the whirlwind, no rending
of the veil, or chariot in the sky—only
water rising and falling in breathing springs
and seeping up through limestone, aquifers filling
and flowing over, russet stands of prairie grass
and dark pupils of black-eyed Susans. Only
the fixed and wandering stars: Orion rising sideways,
Jupiter traversing the southwest like a great firefly,
Venus trembling and faceted in the west—and the moon,
appearing suddenly over your shoulder, brimming
and ovoid, ripe with light, lifting slowly,
deliberately,
wobbling slightly, while far below, the faithful sea
rises up and follows.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by Carolyn Miller, from her most recent
book of poems, Light, Moving, Sixteen Rivers
Press, 2009. Reprinted by permission of Carolyn Miller
and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2010 by The
Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted
Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant
in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We
do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
268
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
If writers are both skilled and lucky, they may write
something that will carry their words into the future,
past the hour of their own deaths. I’d guess all writers
hope for this, and the following poem by Peter Cooley,
who lives in New Orleans and teaches creative writing at
Tulane, beautifully expresses his hope, and theirs.
The One Certain Thing
A day will come I’ll watch you reading this.
I’ll look up from these words I’m writing now—
this line I’m standing on, I’ll be right here,
alive again. I’ll breathe on you this breath.
Touch this word now, that one. Warm, isn’t it?
You are the person come to clean my room;
you are whichever of my three children
opens the drawer here where this poem will go
in a few minutes when I’ve had my say.
These are the words from immortality.
No one stands between us now except Death:
I enter it entirely writing this.
I have to tell you I am not alone.
Watching you read, Eternity’s with me.
We like to watch you read. Read us again.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by Peter Cooley, whose most recent book
of poems is Divine Margins, Carnegie Mellon
University Press, 2009. Poem reprinted from
Pleiades, Vol. 29, no. 2, 2009, by permission of
Peter Cooley and the publisher. Introduction copyright
©2010 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
267
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Here’s a poem by Susan Meyers, of South
Carolina, about the most ordinary of activities, washing
the dishes, but in this instance remembering this
ordinary routine provides an opportunity for speculation
about the private pleasures of a lost parent.
Mother, Washing Dishes
She rarely made us do it—
we’d clear the table instead—so my sister and I teased
that some day we’d train our children right
and not end up like her, after every meal stuck
with red knuckles, a bleached rag to wipe and wring.
The one chore she spared us: gummy plates
in water greasy and swirling with sloughed peas,
globs of egg and gravy.
Or did she guard her place
at the window? Not wanting to give up the gloss
of the magnolia, the school traffic humming.
Sunset, finches at the feeder. First sightings
of the mail truck at the curb, just after noon,
delivering a note, a card, the least bit of news.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by the Univ. of So. Carolina Press.
Susan Meyers’ most recent book of poems is Keep and
Give Away, Univ. of So. Carolina Press, 2006. Poem
reprinted from Tar River Poetry, Vol. 48, no.
1, Fall 2008, by permission of the publisher.
Introduction copyright ©2010 by The Poetry Foundation.
The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
266
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
The great American poet William Carlos
Williams taught us that if a poem can capture a moment
in life, and bathe it in the light of the poet’s close
attention, and make it feel fresh and new, that’s
enough, that’s adequate, that’s good. Here is a poem
like that by Rachel Contreni Flynn, who lives in
Illinois.
The Yellow Bowl
If light pours like water
into the kitchen where I sway
with my tired children,
if the rug beneath us
is woven with tough flowers,
and the yellow bowl on the table
rests with the sweet heft
of fruit, the sun-warmed plums,
if my body curves over the babies,
and if I am singing,
then loneliness has lost its shape,
and this quiet is only quiet.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by Rachel Contreni Flynn, whose newest
book, Tongue, is forthcoming from Red Hen
Press. Reprinted from Haywire, Bright Hill
Press, 2009, by permission of Rachel Contreni Flynn and
the publisher. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
265
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Tell a whiny child that she sounds like a
broken record, and she’s likely to say, “What’s a
record?” Jeff Daniel Marion, a Tennessee poet, tells us
not only what 78 rpm records were, but what they meant
to the people who played them, and to those who remember
the people who played them.
78 RPM
In the back of the junkhouse
stacked on a cardtable covered
by a ragged bedspread, they rest,
black platters whose music once
crackled, hissed with a static
like shuffling feet, fox trot or two-step,
the slow dance of the needle
riding its merry-go-round,
my mother’s head nestled
on my father’s shoulder as they
turned, lost in the sway of sounds,
summer nights and faraway
places, the syncopation of time
waltzing them to a world
they never dreamed, dance
of then to the dust of now.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by Jeff Daniel Marion. Reprinted from
his most recent book of poems, Father, Wind
Publications, 2009, by permission of Jeff Daniel Marion
and the publisher. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
264
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Wendy Videlock lives in western Colorado,
where a person can stop to study what an owl has left
behind without being run over by a taxi.
The Owl
Beneath her nest,
a shrew's head,
a finch's beak
and the bones
of a quail attest
the owl devours
the hour,
and disregards
the rest.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Reprinted
from Poetry, January 2009, by permission of
Wendy Videlock and the publisher. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
263
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Music lessons, well, maybe 80 out of
every 100 of us had them, once, and a few of us went on
to play our chosen instruments all our lives. But the
rest of us? I still own a set of red John Thompson piano
books that haven’t been opened since about 1950. Here
Jill Bialosky, who lives in New York City, captures the
atmosphere of one of those lessons.
Music Is Time
Music is time, said the violin master.
You can’t miss the stop or you’ll miss the train.
One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four,
one, two, three, four.
She clapped her hands together
as the boy moved the bow across the strings.
One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four,
one, two, three, four, the violin master shouted,
louder and more shrill so that her voice
traveled through the house like a metronome,
guiding him, commanding him to translate the beat,
to trust his own internal rhythm.
Good boy, she said.
See how hard you have to be on yourself?
How will your violin know who
you are
unless you make it speak?
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2008 by Jill Bialosky, from her most recent
book of poems, Intruder, Alfred A. Knopf, 2008,
by permission of Jill Bialosky and the publisher. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
262
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
When we hear news of a flood, that news is mostly about
the living, about the survivors. But at the edges of
floods are the dead, too. Here Michael Chitwood, of
North Carolina, looks at what’s floating out there on
the margins.
The Coffins
Two days into the flood
they appear, moored against
a roof eave or bobbing caught
in the crowns of drowned trees.
Like fancy life boats
from an adventurer’s flag ship,
brass plating and grips,
walnut sheen, scroll work,
they slip through the understory
on this brief, bad river.
What have they discovered
and come back to account?
Or is this the beginning
of the marvelous voyage
and they plan never to return?
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2000 by Michael Chitwood, whose most recent
book of poems is Spill, Tupelo Press, 2007.
Poem reprinted from Tar River Poetry, Vol. 48,
no. 1, Fall, 2008, by permission of Michael Chitwood and
the publisher. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
261
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
All over this country, marriage
counselors and therapists are right now speaking to
couples about unspoken things. In this poem, Andrea
Hollander Budy, an Arkansas poet, shows us one of those
couples, suffering from things done and undone.
Betrayal
They decide finally not to speak
of it, the one blemish in their otherwise
blameless marriage. It happened
as these things do, before the permanence
was set, before the children grew
complicated, before the quench
of loving one another became all
each of them wanted from this life.
Years later the bite
of not knowing (and not wanting
to know) still pierces the doer
as much as the one to whom it was done:
the threadbare lying, the insufferable longing,
the inimitable lack of touching, the undoing
undone.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by Andrea Hollander Budy, whose most
recent book of poems is Woman in the Painting,
Autumn House, 2006. Poem reprinted from Shenandoah,
Vol. 59, no. 1, by permission of Andrea Hollander Budy
and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2010 by The
Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
260
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
This column marks our fifth anniversary, and we send you
our thanks for supporting what we try to accomplish
here.
These days are brim full of bad news about our
economy—businesses closing, people losing their houses,
their jobs. If there’s any comfort in a situation like
this, it’s in the fact that there’s a big community of
sufferers. Here’s a poem by Dana Bisignani, who lives in
Indiana, that describes what it feels like to sit
through a bankruptcy hearing.
Bankruptcy Hearing
They have us corralled
in the basement of the courthouse.
One desk and a row of folding chairs—
just like first grade, our desks facing Teacher
in neat little rows.
Upstairs,
wooden benches like pews and red
carpet reserved for those who’ve held out
the longest. No creditors have come to claim us
today. We’re small-time.
This guy from the graveyard shift
stares at his steel-toed boots, nervous hands
in his lap. None of us look each other
in the eye. We steal quick looks—how did you
get here. . .
chemo bills, a gambling addiction,
a summer spent unemployed and too many
cash advances to pay the rent.
We examine the pipes that hang
from the ceiling, the scratched tiles on the floor,
the red glow of the exit sign at the end of the hall
so like our other failed escapes:
light of the TV at night,
glass of cheap Merlot beside a lamp,
a stop light on the way out of town.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2008 by Dana Bisignani and reprinted from
Blue Collar Review, Vol. 12, Issue 2, Winter
2008-2009, by permission of Dana Bisignani and the
publisher. Introduction copyright ©2010 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
259
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Wisconsin writer Freya Manfred is not only a fine poet
but the daughter of the late Frederick Manfred, a
distinguished novelist of the American west. Here is a
lovely snapshot of her father, whom I cherished among my
good friends.
Green Pear Tree in September
On a hill overlooking the Rock River
my father’s pear tree shimmers,
in perfect peace,
covered with hundreds of ripe pears
with pert tops, plump bottoms,
and long curved leaves.
Until the green-haloed tree
rose up and sang hello,
I had forgotten. . .
He planted it twelve years ago,
when he was seventy-three,
so that in September
he could stroll down
with the sound of the crickets
rising and falling around him,
and stand, naked to the waist,
slightly bent, sucking juice
from a ripe pear.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2003 by Freya Manfred. Her most recent book
of poems is Swimming With A Hundred Year Old
Snapping Turtle, Red Dragonfly Press, 2008. Poem
reprinted from My Only Home, Red Dragonfly
Press, 2003, by permission of Freya Manfred and the
publisher. Introduction copyright ©2010 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
258
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
This marks the fourth time we’ve published a poem by
David Baker, one of my favorite writers. Baker lives in
Granville, Ohio, and teaches at Denison University. He
is also the poetry editor for the distinguished
Kenyon Review.
Old Man Throwing a Ball
He is tight at first, stiff, stands there atilt
tossing the green fluff tennis ball down
the side alley, but soon he’s limber,
he’s letting it fly and the black lab
lops back each time. These are the true lovers,
this dog, this man, and when the dog stops
to pee, the old guy hurries him back, then
hurls the ball farther away. Now his mother
dodders out, she’s old as the sky, wheeling
her green tank with its sweet vein, breath.
She tips down the path he’s made for her,
grass rippling but trim, soft underfoot,
to survey the yard, every inch of it
in fine blossom, set-stone, pruned miniature,
split rails docked along the front walk,
antique watering cans down-spread—up
huffs the dog again with his mouthy ball—
so flowers seem to spill out, red geraniums,
grand blue asters, and something I have
no name for, wild elsewhere in our world
but here a thing to tend. To call for, and it comes.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by David Baker, whose most recent book
of poems is Never-Ending Birds, W. W. Norton,
2009. Poem reprinted from Virginia Quarterly Review,
Vol. 84, no. 2, Spring 2009, by permission of David
Baker and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2010 by
The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted
Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant
in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We
do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
257
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Often when I dig some change out of my
jeans pocket to pay somebody for something, the pennies
and nickels are accompanied by a big gob of blue lint.
So it’s no wonder that I was taken with this poem by a
Massachusetts poet, Gary Metras, who isn’t embarrassed.
Lint
It doesn’t bother me to have
lint in the bottoms of pant pockets;
it gives the hands something to do,
especially since I no longer hold
shovel, hod, or hammer
in the daylight hours of labor
and haven’t, in fact, done so
in twenty-five years. A long time
to be picking lint from pockets.
Perhaps even long enough to have
gathered sacks full of lint
that could have been put
to good use, maybe spun into yarn
to knit a sweater for my wife’s
Christmas present, or strong thread
whirled and woven into a tweedy jacket.
Imagine entering my classroom
in a jacket made from lint.
Who would believe it?
Yet there are stranger things—
the son of a bricklayer with hands
so smooth they’re only fit
for picking lint.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2008 by Gary Metras, whose most recent book
of poems is Greatest Hits 1980-2006, Pudding
House, 2007. Poem reprinted from Poetry East,
Nos. 62 & 63, Fall 2008, by permission of Gary Metras
and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2009 by The
Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
256
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
A poem is an experience like any other, and we can learn
as much or more about, say, an apple from a poem about
an apple as from the apple itself. Since I was a boy,
I’ve been picking up things, but I’ve never found a
turtle shell until I found one in this poem by Jeff
Worley, who lives in Kentucky.
On Finding a Turtle Shell in Daniel Boone National
Forest
This one got tired
of lugging his fortress
wherever he went,
was done with duck and cover
at every explosion
through rustling leaves
of fox and dog and skunk.
Said au revoir to the ritual
of pulling himself together. . .
I imagine him waiting
for the cover of darkness
to let down his hinged drawbridge.
He wanted, after so many
protracted years of caution,
to dance naked and nimble
as a flame under the moon—
even if dancing just once
was all that the teeth
of the forest would allow.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2008 by Jeff Worley, whose most recent book
of poems is Best to Keep Moving, Larkspur
Press, 2009, which includes this poem. Reprinted from
Poetry East, Nos. 62 & 63, Fall, 2008, by
permission of Jeff Worley and the publisher.
Introduction copyright © 2009 by The Poetry Foundation.
The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
255
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
A honeymoon. How often does one happen
according to the dreams that preceded it? In this poem,
Wesley McNair, a poet from Maine, describes a first
night of marriage in a tawdry place. But all’s well that
ends well.
For My Wife
How were we to know, leaving your two kids
behind in New Hampshire for our honeymoon
at twenty-one, that it was a trick of cheap
hotels in New York City to draw customers
like us inside by displaying a fancy lobby?
Arriving in our fourth-floor room, we found
a bed, a scarred bureau, and a bathroom door
with a cut on one side the exact shape
of the toilet bowl that was in its way
when I closed it. I opened and shut the door,
admiring the fit and despairing of it. You
discovered the initials of lovers carved
on the bureau’s top in a zigzag, breaking heart.
How wrong the place was to us then,
unable to see the portents of our future
that seem so clear now in the naiveté
of the arrangements we made, the hotel’s
disdain for those with little money,
the carving of pain and love. Yet in that room
we pulled the covers over ourselves and lay
our love down, and in this way began our unwise
and persistent and lucky life together.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by Wesley McNair, whose most recent book
of poems is Lovers of the Lost: New and Selected
Poems, Godine, 2010. Poem reprinted from Five
Points, Vol. 12, no. 3, by permission of Wesley
McNair and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2009
by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted
Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant
in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We
do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
254
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
What might my late parents have thought,
I wonder, to know that there would one day be an
occupation known as Tooth Painter? Here’s a partial job
description by Lucille Lang Day of Oakland, California.
Tooth Painter
He was tall, lean, serious
about his profession,
said it disturbed him
to see mismatched teeth.
Squinting, he asked me
to turn toward the light
as he held an unglazed crown
by my upper incisors.
With a small brush he applied
yellow, gray, pink, violet
and green from a palette of glazes,
then fired it at sixteen hundred
degrees. We went outside
to check the final color,
and he was pleased. Today
the dentist put it in my mouth,
and no one could ever guess
my secret: there’s no one quite
like me, and I can prove it
by the unique shade of
the ivory sculptures attached
to bony sockets in my jaw.
A gallery opens when I smile.
Even the forgery gleams.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by Lucille Lang Day and reprinted from
The Curvature of Blue, Cervena Barva Press, 2009,
by permission of Lucille Lang Day and the publisher.
Introduction copyright © 2009 by The Poetry Foundation.
The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
253
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Animals are incapable of reason, or so we’ve been told,
but we imaginative humans keep talking to our dogs and
cats as if they could do algebra. In this poem, Ann
Struthers looks into the mystery of instinctive
behavior.
Not Knowing Why
Adolescent white pelicans squawk, rustle, flap their
wings,
lift off in a ragged spiral at imaginary danger.
What danger on this island in the middle
of Marble Lake? They’re off to feel
the lift of wind under their iridescent wings,
because they were born to fly,
because they have nothing else to do,
because wind and water are their elements,
their Bach, their Homer, Shakespeare,
and Spielberg. They wheel over the lake,
the little farms, the tourist village with their camera
eyes.
In autumn something urges
them toward Texas marshes. They follow
their appetites and instincts, unlike the small beetles
creeping along geometric roads, going toward small
boxes,
toward lives as narrow or as wide as the pond,
as glistening or as gray as the sky.
They do not know why. They fly, they fly.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by Ann Struthers, whose most recent book
of poems is What You Try to Tame, The Coe
Review Press, 2004. Poem reprinted from the Coe
Review, Vol. 39, no. 1, Fall 2008, by permission of
Ann Struthers and the publisher. Introduction copyright
© 2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
252
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
My grandfather, when in his nineties, wrote me a letter
in which he listed everything he and my uncle had eaten
in the past week. That was the news. I love this poem by
Nancyrose Houston of Seattle for the way it plays with
the character of those letters from home that many of us
have received.
The Letter From Home
The dogs barked, the dogs
scratched, the dogs got wet, the
dogs shook, the dogs circled, the dogs slept, the dogs
ate,
the dogs barked; the rain fell down, the leaves fell
down, the
eggs fell down and cracked on the floor; the dust
settled,
the wood floors were scratched, the cabinets sat without
doors, the trim without paint, the stuff piled up; I
loaded the
dishwasher, I unloaded the dishwasher, I raked the
leaves,
I did the laundry, I took out the garbage, I took out
the
recycling, I took out the yard waste. There was a bed,
it was
soft, there was a blanket, it was warm, there were
dreams,
they were good. The corn grew, the eggplant grew, the
tomatoes grew, the lettuce grew, the strawberries grew,
the
blackberries grew; the tea kettle screamed, the computer
keys clicked, the radio roared, the TV spoke. “Will they
ever
come home?” “Can’t I take a break?” “How do others keep
their house clean?” “Will I remember this day in fifty
years?”
The sweet tea slipped down my throat, the brownies
melted
in my mouth. My mother cooked, the apple tree bloomed,
the
lilac bloomed, the mimosa bloomed, I bloomed.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by Seattle Arts & Lectures. Reprinted
from Wake Up In Brightness: Poetry & Prose by
Students 2008-2009, Writers in the Schools, 2009,
by permission of Seattle Arts & Lectures. Introduction
copyright © 2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
251
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
The poet Lyn Lifshin, who divides her time between New
York and Virginia, is one of the most prolific poets
among my contemporaries, and has thousands of poems in
print, by my loose reckoning. I have been reading her
work in literary magazines for at least thirty years.
Here’s a good example of this poet at her best.
The Other Fathers
would be coming back
from some war, sending
back stuffed birds or
handkerchiefs in navy
blue with Love painted
on it. Some sent telegrams
for birthdays, the pastel
letters like jewels. The
magazines were full of fathers who
were doing what had
to be done, were serving,
were brave. Someone
yelped there’d be confetti
in the streets, maybe
no school. That soon
we’d have bananas. My
father sat in the grey
chair, war after war,
hardly said a word. I
wished he had gone
away with the others
so maybe he would
be coming back to us
American Life in Poetry is made possible by
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2008 by Lyn Lifshin, whose most recent book
of poems is Persephone, Red Hen Press, 2008.
Poem reprinted from Natural Bridge, No. 20,
Winter, 2008, by permission of Lyn Lifshin and the
publisher. Introduction copyright © 2009 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscript
American Life in Poetry: Column
250
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I’m very fond of poems that demonstrate
their authors’ attentiveness to the world about them, as
regular readers of this column have no doubt noticed.
Here is a nine-word poem by Joette Giorgis, who lives in
Pennsylvania, that is based upon noticing and then
thinking about something so ordinary that it might
otherwise be overlooked. Even the separate words are
flat and commonplace. But so much feeling comes through!
(Untitled)
children grown—
dust accumulates
on half the kitchen table
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also
supported by the Department of English at the University
of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2009 by Joette
Giorgis and reprinted from Modern Haiku, Vol.
40.1, Winter-Spring 2009, by permission of Joette
Giorgis and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2009
by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted
Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant
in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We
do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
249
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
One of the wonderful things about small
children is the way in which they cause us to explain
the world. “What’s that?” they ask, and we have to come
up with an answer. Here Christine Stewart-Nunez, who
lives and teaches in South Dakota, tries to teach her
son a new word only to hear it come back transformed.
Convergence
Through the bedroom
window
a February sunrise, fog suspended
between pines. Intricate crystals—
hoarfrost lace on a cherry tree.
My son calls out, awake. We sway,
blanket-wrapped, his head nuzzling
my neck. Hoarfrost, tree—I point,
shaping each word. Favorable
conditions: a toddler’s brain, hard
data-mining, a system’s approach.
Hoar, he hears. His hand reaches
to the wallpaper lion. Phenomena
converge: warmth, humidity,
temperature’s sudden plunge;
a child’s brain, objects, sound.
Eyes widening, he opens his mouth
and roars.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by The Poetry Foundation
(www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2009 by Christine Stewart-Nunez, whose most
recent book of poems is Postcard on Parchment,
ABZ Press, 2008. Poem reprinted from the Briar Cliff
Review, 2009, by permission of Christine
Stewart-Nunez and the publisher. Introduction copyright
© 2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
248
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Many if not all of us have had the pleasure of watching
choruses of young people sing. It’s an experience rich
with affirmation, it seems to me. Here is a lovely poem
by Tim Nolan, an attorney in Minneapolis.
At the Choral Concert
The high school kids are so beautiful
in their lavender blouses and crisp white shirts.
They open their mouths to sing with that
far-off stare they had looking out from the crib.
Their voices lift up from the marble bed
of the high altar to the blue endless ceiling
of heaven as depicted in the cloudy dome—
and we—as the parents—crane our necks
to see our children and what is above us—
and ahead of us—until the end when we
are invited up to sing with them—sopranos
and altos—tenors and basses—to sing the great
Hallelujah Chorus—and I’m standing with the other
stunned and gray fathers—holding our sheet music—
searching for our parts—and we realize—
our voices are surprisingly rich—experienced—
For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth—
and how do we all know to come in
at exactly the right moment?—Forever and ever—
and how can it not seem that we shall reign
forever and ever—in one voice with our beautiful
children—looking out into all those lights.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of
Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the
Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2008 by Tim Nolan from
his most recent book, The Sound of It, New Rivers
Press, 2008, by permission of the author and publisher.
First printed in Ploughshares, Winter 2007-2008.
Introduction copyright © 2009 by The Poetry Foundation.
The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
247
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Family photographs, how much they do capture in all
their elbow-to-elbow awkwardness. In this poem, Ben Vogt
of Nebraska describes a color snapshot of a Christmas
dinner, the family, impatient to tuck in, arrayed along
the laden table. I especially like the description of
the turkey.
Grandpa Vogt’s—1959
The food is on the table. Turkey tanned
to a cowboy boot luster, potatoes mashed
and mounded in a bowl whose lip is lined
with blue flowers linked by grey vines faded
from washing. Everyone’s heads have turned
to elongate the table’s view—a last supper twisted
toward a horizon where the Christmas tree, crowned
by a window, sets into itself half inclined.
Each belly cries. Each pair of eyes admonished
by Aunt Photographer. Look up. You’re wined
and dined for the older folks who’ve pined
to see your faces, your lives, lightly framed
in this moment’s flash. Parents are moved,
press their children’s heads up from the table,
hide their hunger by rubbing lightly wrinkled
hands atop their laps. They’ll hold the image
as long as need be, seconds away from grace.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the
Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2008 by Benjamin Vogt,
whose most recent book of poems is Indelible Marks,
Pudding House Press, 2004. Reprinted by permission of
Benjamin Vogt. Introduction copyright © 2009 by The
Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
246
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Childhood is too precious a part of life to lose before
we have to, but our popular culture all too often yanks
our little people out of their innocence. Here is a poem
by Trish Crapo, of Leyden, Massachusetts, that captures
a moment of that innocence.
Back Then
Out in the yard, my sister and I
tore thread from century plants
to braid into bracelets, ate
chalky green bananas,
threw coconuts onto the sidewalk
to crack their hard, hairy skulls.
The world had begun to happen,
but not time. We would live
forever, sunburnt and pricker-stuck,
our promises written in blood. Not yet
would men or illness distinguish us,
our thoughts cleave us in two.
If she squeezed sour calamondins
into a potion, I drank it. When I jumped
from the fig tree, she jumped.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also
supported by the Department of English at the University
of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2004 by Trish Crapo
and reprinted from Walking Through Paradise
Backwards, Slate Roof Press, 2004, by permission of
Trish Crapo and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©
2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
245
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I love the way the following poem by Susie Patlove
opens, with the little rooster trying to "be what he
feels he must be." This poet lives in Massachusetts, in
a community called Windy Hill, which must be a very good
place for chickens, too.
Poor Patriarch
The rooster pushes his head
high among the hens, trying to be
what he feels he must be, here
in the confines of domesticity.
Before the tall legs of my presence,
he bristles and shakes his ruby comb.
Little man, I want to say
the hens know who they are.
I want to ease his mistaken burden,
want him to crow with the plain
ecstasy of morning light as it
finds its winter way above the woods.
Poor outnumbered fellow,
how did he come to believe
that on his plumed shoulders
lay the safety of an entire flock?
I run my hand down the rippled
brindle of his back, urge him to relax,
drink in the female pleasures
that surround him, of egg laying,
of settling warm-breasted in the nest
of this brief and feathered time.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of
Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the
Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2007 by Susie Patlove
from Quickening, Slate Roof Press, 2007.
Reprinted by permission of Susie Patlove and the
publisher. Introduction copyright © 2009 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
244
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Love predated the invention of language, but love poetry
got its start as soon as we had words through which to
express our feelings. Here’s a lovely example of a
contemporary poem of love and longing by George Bilgere,
who lives in Ohio.
Night Flight
I am doing laps at night, alone
In the indoor pool. Outside
It is snowing, but I am warm
And weightless, suspended and out
Of time like a fly in amber.
She is thousands of miles
From here, and miles above me,
Ghosting the stratosphere,
Heading from New York to London.
Though it is late, even
At that height, I know her light
Is on, her window a square
Of gold as she reads mysteries
Above the Atlantic. I watch
The line of black tile on the pool’s
Floor, leading me down the lane.
If she looks down by moonlight,
Under a clear sky, she will see
Black water. She will see me
Swimming distantly, moving far
From shore, suspended with her
In flight through the wide gulf
As we swim toward land together.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also
supported by the Department of English at the University
of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2009 by George
Bilgere, whose most recent book of poems is Haywire,
Utah State University Press, 2006. Reprinted by
permission of George Bilgere. Introduction copyright ©
2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
243
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Lots of contemporary poems are anecdotal,
a brief narration of some event, and what can make them
rise above anecdote is when they manage to convey
significance, often as the poem closes. Here is an
example of one like that, by Marie Sheppard Williams,
who lives in Minneapolis.
Everybody
I stood at a bus corner
one afternoon, waiting
for the #2. An old
guy stood waiting too.
I stared at him. He
caught my stare, grinned,
gap-toothed. Will you
sign my coat? he said.
Held out a pen. He wore
a dirty canvas coat that
had signatures all over
it, hundreds, maybe
thousands.
I’m trying
to get everybody, he
said.
I signed. On a
little space on a pocket.
Sometimes I remember:
I am one of everybody.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of
Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the
Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2006 by Marie Sheppard
Williams. Reprinted from the California Review,
Volume 32, no. 4, by permission of Marie Sheppard
Williams and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©
2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
242
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
There are lots of poems in which a poet
expresses belated appreciation for a parent, and if you
don’t know Robert Hayden’s poem, “Those Winter Sundays,”
you ought to look it up sometime. In this lovely sonnet,
Kathy Mangan, of Maryland, contributes to that respected
tradition.
The Whistle
You could whistle me home from anywhere
in the neighborhood; avenues away,
I’d pick out your clear, alternating pair
of notes, the signal to quit my child’s play
and run back to our house for supper,
or a Saturday trip to the hardware store.
Unthrottled, wavering in the upper
reaches, your trilled summons traveled farther
than our few blocks. I’ve learned too, how your heart’s
radius extends, though its beat
has stopped. Still, some days a sudden fear darts
through me, whether it’s my own city street
I hurry across, or at a corner in an unknown
town: the high, vacant air arrests me—where’s home?
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of
Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the
Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©1995 by Kathy Mangan,
from her most recent book of poems, Above the Tree
Line, Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1995.
Reprinted by permission of Kathy Mangan and the
publisher. Introduction copyright © 2009 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
241
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I love poems in which the central metaphors are fresh
and original, and here’s a marvelous, coiny description
of autumn by Elizabeth Klise von Zerneck, who lives in
Illinois.
Like Coins, November
We drove past late fall fields as flat and cold
as sheets of tin and, in the distance, trees
were tossed like coins against the sky. Stunned gold
and bronze, oaks, maples stood in twos and threes:
some copper bright, a few dull brown and, now
and then, the shock of one so steeled with frost
it glittered like a dime. The autumn boughs
and blackened branches wore a somber gloss
that whispered tails to me, not heads. I read
memorial columns in their trunks; their leaves
spelled UNUM, cent; and yours, the only head . . .
in penny profile, Lincoln-like (one sleeve,
one eye) but even it was turning tails
as russet leaves lay spent across the trails.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of
Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the
Department of English at the University of Nebraska,
Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2008 by Elizabeth Klise von
Zerneck. Reprinted from The Spoon River Poetry Review,
Vol. XXXIII, no. 1, 2008, by permission of Elizabeth
Klise von Zerneck and the publisher. The introduction’s
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
240
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
We haven’t shown you many poems in which the poet enters
another person and speaks through him or her, but it is,
of course, an effective and respected way of writing.
Here Philip Memmer of Deansboro, N.Y., enters the
persona of a young woman having an unpleasant experience
with a blind date.
The Paleontologist’s Blind Date
You have such lovely bones, he says,
holding my face in his hands,
and although I can almost feel
the stone and the sand
sifting away, his fingers
like the softest of brushes,
I realize after this touch
he would know me
years from now, even
in the dark, even
without my skin.
Thank you, I smile—
then I close the door
and never call him again.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also
supported by the Department of English at the University
of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2008 by Philip
Memmer, whose most recent book of poetry is Lucifer:
A Hagiography, Lost Horse Press, 2009. Poem
reprinted from Threat of Pleasure, Word Press,
2008, by permission of Philip Memmer and the publisher.
The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
239
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE
It’s likely that if you found the original handwritten
manuscript of T. S. Eliot’s groundbreaking poem, “The
Waste Land,” you wouldn’t be able to trade it for a
candy bar at the Quick Shop on your corner. Here’s a
poem by David Lee Garrison of Ohio about how
unsuccessfully classical music fits into a subway.
Bach in the DC Subway
As an experiment,
The Washington Post
asked a concert violinist—
wearing jeans, tennis shoes,
and a baseball cap—
to stand near a trash can
at rush hour in the subway
and play Bach
on a Stradivarius.
Partita No. 2 in D Minor
called out to commuters
like an ocean to waves,
sang to the station
about why we should bother
to live.
A thousand people
streamed by. Seven of them
paused for a minute or so
and thirty-two dollars floated
into the open violin case.
A café hostess who drifted
over to the open door
each time she was free
said later that Bach
gave her peace,
and all the children,
all of them,
waded into the music
as if it were water,
listening until they had to be
rescued by parents
who had somewhere else to go.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of
Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the
Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem reprinted from Rattle,
Vol. 14, No. 2, Winter 2008, by permission of David Lee
Garrison and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©
2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
238
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE
Though some teacher may have made you think that all
poetry is deadly serious, chock full of coded meanings
and obscure symbols, poems, like other works of art, can
be delightfully playful. Here Bruce Guernsey, who
divides his time between Illinois and Maine, plays with
a common yam.
Yam
The potato that ate all its carrots,
can see in the dark like a mole,
its eyes the scars
from centuries of shovels, tines.
May spelled backwards
because it hates the light,
pawing its way, paddling along,
there in the catacombs.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also
supported by the Department of English at the University
of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2008 by Bruce
Guernsey. Reprinted from New England Primer by
Bruce Guernsey, Cherry Grove Collections, 2008, by
permission of Bruce Guernsey and the publisher.
Introduction copyright © 2009 by The Poetry Foundation.
The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
237
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE
An aubade is a poem about separation at dawn, but as
you’ll see, this one by Dore Kiesselbach, who lives in
Minnesota, is about the complex relationship between a
son and his mother.
Aubade
“Take me with you”
my mother says
standing in her nightgown
as, home from college,
I prepare to leave
before dawn.
The desolation
she must face
was once my concern
but like a bobber
pulled beneath
the surface
by an inedible fish
she vanished
into the life
he offered her.
It stopped occurring
to me she might return.
“I’ll be back” I say
and then I go.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of
Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department
of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2008 by Dore Kiesselbach. Poem reprinted from
Field, No. 79, Fall 2008, by permission of Dore
Kiesselbach and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©
2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
236
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Cecilia Woloch teaches in California, and when she’s not
with her students she’s off to the Carpathian Mountains
of Poland, to help with the farm work. But somehow she
resisted her wanderlust just long enough to make this
telling snapshot of her father at work.
The Pick
I watched him swinging the pick in the sun,
breaking the concrete steps into chunks of rock,
and the rocks into dust,
and the dust into earth again.
I must have sat for a very long time on the split rail
fence,
just watching him.
My father’s body glistened with sweat,
his arms flew like dark wings over his head.
He was turning the backyard into terraces,
breaking the hill into two flat plains.
I took for granted the power of him,
though it frightened me, too.
I watched as he swung the pick into the air
and brought it down hard
and changed the shape of the world,
and changed the shape of the world again.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Reprinted from When She Named Fire,
ed., Andrea Hollander Budy, Autumn House Press, 2009, by
permission of Cecilia Woloch and the publisher. The poem
first appeared in Sacrifice by Cecilia Woloch, Tebot
Bach, 1997. Introduction copyright © 2009 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
235
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I tell my writing students that their most important
task is to pay attention to what’s going on around them.
God is in the details, as we say. Here David Bottoms,
the Poet Laureate of Georgia, tells us a great deal
about his father by showing us just one of his hands.
My Father’s Left Hand
Sometimes my old man’s hand flutters over his knee,
flaps
in crazy circles, and falls back to his leg.
Sometimes it leans for an hour on that bony ledge.
And sometimes when my old man tries to speak, his hand
waggles
in the air, chasing a word, then perches again
on the bar of his walker or the arm of a chair.
Sometimes when evening closes down his window and rain
blackens into ice on the sill, it trembles like a
sparrow in a storm.
Then full dark falls, and it trembles less, and less,
until it’s still.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of
Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department
of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2008 by David Bottoms, whose most recent book
of poems is Waltzing Through the Endtime, Copper Canyon
Press, 2004. Poem reprinted from Alaska Quarterly
Review, Vol. 25, No. 3 & 4, Fall & Winter 2008, by
permission of David Bottoms and the publisher.
Introduction copyright ©2009 by The Poetry Foundation.
The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
234
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
This week's poem is by a high school student, Michelle
Bennett, who lives in Tukwila, Washington, and here she
is taking a look at what comes next, Western Washington
University in Bellingham, with everything new about it,
including opportunity.
Western
You find yourself in a narrow bed you’ve never slept in,
on a tree-lined grassy field you've never walked upon,
on a cold toilet seat you have not sat on,
in a place you now call your home, your learning, your
future.
Red stone pathways expose the buildings that will house
the knowledge you seek,
and the information you want to gather.
You crane your neck to look up
at the 13-story brick tower rising from the ground,
looming over you as you walk past. The melodies
and beats of different songs mix,
create a sound of their own,
flow from open windows. Crushed leeks
Top Ramen noodles ground into a blue
and speckled carpet attract armies of ants
to the communal kitchen on the sixth floor.
You pull your jacket tighter against your body,
strong, salty wind whips off the Sound,
and up the hill as you walk through
Red Square toward the clatter of knives,
forks and digesting bellies.
Finally, you are released like a white dove
from the hands of its owner, allowed to fly
discovering your dreams,
discovering what you are made of.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of
Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department
of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2008 by Seattle Arts & Lectures. Reprinted
from Dive Down Into the Loud, Seattle Arts & Letters,
2008, by permission of the author and publisher.
Introduction copyright © 2009 by The Poetry Foundation.
The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column
233
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Diane Glancy is one of our country's Native American
poets, and I recently judged her latest book, Asylum
in the Grasslands, the winner of a regional
competition. Here is a good example of her clear and
steady writing.
Indian Summer
There’s a farm auction up the road.
Wind has its bid in for the leaves.
Already bugs flurry the headlights
between cornfields at night.
If this world were permanent,
I could dance full as the squaw dress
on the clothesline.
I would not see winter
in the square of white yard-light on the wall.
But something tugs at me.
The world is at a loss and I am part of it
migrating daily.
Everything is up for grabs
like a box of farm tools broken open.
I hear the spirits often in the garden
and along the shore of corn.
I know this place is not mine.
I hear them up the road again.
This world is a horizon, an open sea.
Behind the house, the white iceberg of the barn.
American Life in Poetry is made possible
by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Copyright ©2007 by Diane Glancy, whose
novel The Reason For Crows, is forthcoming from
State University of New York Press, 2009. Poem reprinted
from Asylum in the Grasslands, University of
Arizona Press, 2007, by permission of Diane Glancy.
Introduction copyright ©2009 by The Poetry Foundation.
The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry:
Column 232
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I’ve built many wren
houses since my wife and I moved to the country 25 years
ago. It’s a good thing to do in the winter. At one point
I had so many extra that in the spring I set up at a
local farmers’ market and sold them for five dollars
apiece. I say all this to assert that I am an authority
at listening to the so small voices that Thomas R. Smith
captures in this poem. Smith lives in Wisconsin.
Baby Wrens’ Voices
I am a student of wrens.
When the mother bird returns
to her brood, beak squirming
with winged breakfast, a shrill
clamor rises like jingling
from tiny, high-pitched bells.
Who’d have guessed such a small
house contained so many voices?
The sound they make is the pure sound
of life’s hunger. Who hangs our house
in the world’s branches, and listens
when we sing from our hunger?
Because I love best those songs
that shake the house of the singer,
I am a student of wrens.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org,
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2005 by Thomas R.
Smith, whose most recent book of poetry is "Waking
Before Dawn," Red Dragonfly Press, 2007. Poem reprinted
from the chapbook "Kinnickinnic," Parallel Press, 2008,
by permission of Thomas R. Smith and the publisher. The
poem first appeared in
"There is No Other Way to Speak," the 2005 “winter book”
of the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, ed., Bill Holm.
Introduction copyright © 2009 by The Poetry Foundation.
The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts
American Life in Poetry:
Column 231
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
This column originates on the campus of the University
of Nebraska-Lincoln, and at the beginning of each
semester, we see parents helping their children move
into their dorm rooms and apartments and looking a
little shaken by the process. This wonderful poem by
Sue Ellen Thompson of Maryland captures not only a
moment like that, but a mother’s feelings as well.
Helping My Daughter Move into Her First Apartment
This is all I am to her now:
a pair of legs in running shoes,
two arms strung with braided wire.
She heaves a carton sagging with CDs
at me and I accept it gladly, lifting
with my legs, not bending over,
raising each foot high enough
to clear the step. Fortunate to be
of any use to her at all,
I wrestle, stooped and single-handed,
with her mattress in the stairwell,
saying nothing as it pins me,
sweating, to the wall. Vacuum cleaner,
spiny cactus, five-pound sacks
of rice and lentils slumped
against my heart: up one flight
of stairs and then another,
down again with nothing in my arms
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2006 by Sue Ellen
Thompson, and reprinted from "When She Named Fire,"
ed., Andrea Hollander Budy, Autumn House Press, 2009,
and reprinted by permission of the poet and publisher.
First printed in "The Golden Hour," Sue Ellen
Thompson, Autumn House Press, 2006. Introduction
copyright ©2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the
Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept
unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry:
Column 230
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
It’s been sixty-odd years since I was in the
elementary grades, but I clearly remember those first
school days in early autumn, when summer was suddenly
over and we were all perched in our little desks
facing into the future. Here Ron Koertge of California
gives us a glimpse of a day like that.
First Grade
Until then, every forest
had wolves in it, we thought
it would be fun to wear snowshoes
all the time, and we could talk to water.
So why is this woman with the gray
breath calling out names and pointing
to the little desks we will occupy
for the rest of our lives?
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of
Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the
Department of English at the University of Nebraska,
Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2008 by Ron Koertge, whose
most recent book of poems is "Fever," Red Hen Press,
2006. Reprinted by permission of Ron Koertge.
Introduction copyright ©2009 by The Poetry Foundation.
The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as
United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to
the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not
accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 229
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
For over forty years, Mark Vinz, of Moorhead,
Minnesota--poet, teacher, publisher--has been a
prominent advocate for the literature of the Upper Great
Plains. Here’s a recent poem that speaks to growing
older.
Cautionary Tales
Beyond the field of grazing, gazing cows
the great bull has a pasture to himself,
monumental, black flanks barely twitching
from the swarming flies. Only a few strands of
wire separate us—how could I forget
my childhood terror, the grownups warning
that the old bull near my uncle’s farm
would love to chase me, stomp me, gore me
if I ever got too close. And so I
skirted acres just to keep my distance,
peeking through the leaves to see if he still
was watching me, waiting for some foolish move—
those fierce red eyes, the thunder in the ground—
or maybe that was simply nightmares. It’s
getting hard to tell, as years themselves keep
gaining ground relentlessly, their hot breath
on my back, and not a fence in sight.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of Nebraska,
Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2008 by Mark Vinz, whose most
recent book of poems is "Long Distance," Midwestern
Writers Publishing House, 2006. Poem reprinted from
"South Dakota Review" Vol. 46, no. 2, by permission of
Mark Vinz and the publisher. Introduction copyright
©2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 228
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I don't often mention literary forms, but of this lovely
poem by Cecilia Woloch I want to suggest that the form,
a villanelle, which uses a pattern of repetition, adds
to the enchantment I feel in reading it. It has a kind
of layering, like memory itself. Woloch lives and
teaches in southern California.
My Mother's Pillow
My mother sleeps with the Bible open on her pillow;
she reads herself to sleep and wakens startled.
She listens for her heart: each breath is shallow.
For years her hands were quick with thread and needle.
She used to sew all night when we were little;
now she sleeps with the Bible on her pillow
and believes that Jesus understands her sorrow:
her children grown, their father frail and brittle;
she stitches in her heart, her breathing shallow.
Once she "even slept fast," rushed tomorrow,
mornings full of sunlight, sons and daughters.
Now she sleeps alone with the Bible on her pillow
and wakes alone and feels the house is hollow,
though my father in his blue room stirs and mutters;
she listens to him breathe: each breath is shallow.
I flutter down the darkened hallway, shadow
between their dreams, my mother and my father,
asleep in rooms I pass, my breathing shallow.
I leave the Bible open on her pillow.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of Nebraska,
Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2003 by Cecilia Woloch, whose
most recent book of poetry is "Narcissus," Tupelo Press,
2008. Reprinted from "Late," by Cecilia Woloch,
published by BOA Editions, Rochester, NY, 2003, by
permission of Cecilia Woloch. Introduction copyright
©2009 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 227
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Jane Hirshfield, a Californian and one of my favorite
poets, writes beautiful image-centered poems of clarity
and concision, which sometimes conclude with a sudden
and surprising deepening. Here's just one example.
Green-Striped Melons
They lie
under stars in a field.
They lie under rain in a field.
Under sun.
Some people
are like this as well—
like a painting
hidden beneath another painting.
An unexpected weight
the sign of their ripeness.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c)2008 by Jane
Hirshfield, whose most recent book of poems is "After,"
Harper Collins, 2006. Poem reprinted from "Alaska
Quarterly," Vol. 25, nos. 3 & 4, Fall & Winter, 2008, by
permission of Jane Hirshfield and the publisher.
Introduction copyright (c)2009 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 226
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Elizabeth Bishop, one of our greatest American poets,
once wrote a long poem in which the sudden appearance of
a moose on a highway creates a community among a group
of strangers on a bus. Here Ronald Wallace, a Wisconsin
poet, gives us a sighting with similar results.
Sustenance
Australia. Phillip Island. The Tasman Sea.
Dusk. The craggy coastline at low tide in fog.
Two thousand tourists milling in the stands
as one by one, and then in groups, the fairy penguins
mass up on the sand like so much sea wrack and
debris. And then, as on command, the improbable
parade begins: all day they've been out fishing
for their chicks, and now, somehow, they find them
squawking in their burrows in the dunes, one by one,
two by two, such comical solemnity, as wobbling by
they catch our eager eyes until we're squawking, too,
in English, French, and Japanese, Yiddish and Swahili,
like some happy wedding party brought to tears
by whatever in the ceremony repairs the rifts
between us. The rain stops. The fog lifts. Stars.
And we go home, less hungry, satisfied, to friends
and family, regurgitating all we've heard and seen.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. "Sustenance" from "For A Limited Time
Only," by Ronald Wallace, (c) 2008. Used by permission
of the University of Pittsburgh Press. The poem first
appeared in "Poetry Northwest," Vol. 41, no. 4, 2001.
Introduction copyright (c)2009 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 225
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET
LAUREATE, 2004-2006
There have been many poems written in which a photograph
is described in detail, and this one by Margaret
Kaufman, of the Bay Area in California, uses the
snapshot to carry her further, into the details of
memory.
Photo, Brownie Troop, St. Louis, 1949
I'm going to put Karen Prasse right here
in front of you on this page
so that you won't mistake her for something else,
an example of precocity, for instance,
a girl who knew that the sky (blue crayon)
was above the earth (green crayon)
and did not, as you had drawn it, come right down
to the green on which your three bears stood.
You can tell from her outfit that she is a Brownie.
You can tell from her socks that she knows how
to line things up, from her mouth that she may
grow up mean or simply competent. Do not mistake
her for an art critic: when she told you
the first day of first grade that your drawing
was "wrong," you stood your ground and told her
to look out the window. Miss Voss told your mom
you were going to be a good example of something,
although you cannot tell from the way your socks sag,
nor from your posture, far from Brownie-crisp.
This is not about you for a change, but about
mis-perception, of which Karen was an early example.
Who knows? She may have meant to be helpful,
though that is not always a virtue,
and gets in the way of some art.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c)2008 by Margaret
Kaufman, whose newest book of poems, "Inheritance," is
forthcoming in spring, 2010, from Sixteen Rivers Press.
Poem reprinted from "The Chattahoochee Review," Vol. 28,
no. 2,3, Spring/Summer 2008, by permission of Margaret
Kaufman and the publisher. Introduction copyright
(c)2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 224
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
When we're young, it seems there are endless
possibilities for lives we might lead, and then as we
grow older and the opportunities get fewer we begin to
realize that the life we've been given is the only one
we're likely to get. Here's Jean Nordhaus, of the
Washington, D.C. area, exploring this process.
I Was Always Leaving
I was always leaving, I was
about to get up and go, I was
on my way, not sure where.
Somewhere else. Not here.
Nothing here was good enough.
It would be better there, where I
was going. Not sure how or why.
The dome I cowered under
would be raised, and I would be released
into my true life. I would meet there
the ones I was destined to meet.
They would make an opening for me
among the flutes and boulders,
and I would be taken up. That this
might be a form of death
did not occur to me. I only know
that something held me back,
a doubt, a debt, a face I could not
leave behind. When the door
fell open, I did not go through.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c)2008 by Jean
Nordhaus, whose most recent book of poems is
"Innocence," Ohio State University Press, 2006. Poem
reprinted from "The Gettysburg Review," Vol. 21, no. 4,
Winter, 2008, by permission of Jean Nordhaus and the
publisher. Introduction copyright (c)2009 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 223
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
There's lots of literature about the loss of innocence,
because we all share in that loss and literature is
about what we share. Here's a poem by Alexandra Teague,
a San Franciscan, in which a child's awakening to the
alphabet coincides with another awakening: the
unsettling knowledge that all of us don't see things in
the same way.
Language Lessons
The carpet in the kindergarten room
was alphabet blocks; all of us fidgeting
on bright, primary letters. On the shelf
sat that week's inflatable sound. The "th"
was shaped like a tooth. We sang
about brushing up and down, practiced
exhaling while touching our tongues
to our teeth. Next week, a puffy U
like an upside-down umbrella; the rest
of the alphabet deflated. Some days,
we saw parents through the windows
to the hallway sky. "Look, a fat lady,"
a boy beside me giggled. Until then
I'd only known my mother as beautiful.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c)2008 by Alexandra
Teague, whose first book, "Mortal Geography," winner of
the Lexi Rudnitsky Prize, is forthcoming in 2010 from
Persea Books. Reprinted from "Third Coast," Fall 2008,
by permission of Alexandra Teague and the publisher.
Introduction copyright (c)2009 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 222
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Coleman Barks, who lives in Georgia, is not only the
English language's foremost translator of the poems of
the 13th century poet, Rumi, but he's also a loving
grandfather, and for me that's even more important. His
poems about his granddaughter, Briny, are brim full of
joy. Here's one:
Glad
In the glory of the gloaming-green soccer
field her team, the Gladiators, is losing
ten to zip. She never loses interest in
the roughhouse one-on-one that comes
every half a minute. She sticks her leg
in danger and comes out the other side running.
Later a clump of opponents on the street is chant-
ing, WE WON, WE WON, WE . . . She stands up
on the convertible seat holding to the wind-
shield. WE LOST, WE LOST BIGTIME, TEN TO
NOTHING, WE LOST, WE LOST. Fist pumping
air. The other team quiet, abashed, chastened.
Good losers don't laugh last; they laugh
continuously, all the way home so glad.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c)2001 by Coleman
Barks, from his most recent book of poems, "Winter Sky:
New and Selected Poems, 1968-2008," University of
Georgia Press, 2008, and reprinted by permission of
Coleman Barks and the publisher. Introduction copyright
(c)2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 221
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Sometimes, it's merely the sound of a child's voice in a
nearby room that makes a parent feel immensely lucky. To
celebrate Father's Day, here's a joyful poem of
fatherhood by Todd Boss, who lives in St. Paul,
Minnesota.
This Morning in a Morning Voice
to beat the froggiest
of morning voices,
my son gets out of bed
and takes a lumpish song
along--a little lyric
learned in kindergarten,
something about a
boat. He's found it in
the bog of his throat
before his feet have hit
the ground, follows
its wonky melody down
the hall and into the loo
as if it were the most
natural thing for a little
boy to do, and lets it
loose awhile in there
to a tinkling sound while
I lie still in bed, alive
like I've never been, in
love again with life,
afraid they'll find me
drowned here, drowned
in more than my fair
share of joy.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c)2008 by Todd Boss,
whose most recent book of poems is "Yellowrocket," W. W.
Norton & Co., 2008. Poem reprinted from "Poetry,"
December 2008, by permission of Todd Boss and the
publisher. Introduction copyright (c)2009 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 220
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
One of the privileges of being U.S. Poet Laureate was to
choose two poets each year to receive a $10,000
fellowship, funded by the Witter Bynner Foundation.
Joseph Stroud, who lives in California, was one of my
choices. This poem is representative of his clear-eyed,
imaginative poetry.
Night in Day
The night never wants to end, to give itself over
to light. So it traps itself in things: obsidian, crows.
Even on summer solstice, the day of light's great
triumph, where fields of sunflowers guzzle in the sun—
we break open the watermelon and spit out
black seeds, bits of night glistening on the grass.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c)2009 by Joseph
Stroud, and reprinted from his recent book of poems, "Of
This World: New and Selected Poems 1966-2006," Copper
Canyon Press, 2009, by permission of the author and
publisher. Introduction copyright (c)2009 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 219
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
As we all know, getting older isn't hard to do. Time
continues on. In this poem, Deborah Warren of
Massachusetts asks us to think about the life lived
between our past and present selves, as indicated in the
marginal comments of an old book. There's something
beautiful about books allowing us to talk to who we once
were, and this poem captures this beauty.
Marginalia
Finding an old book on a basement shelf—
gray, spine bent—and reading it again,
I met my former, unfamiliar, self,
some of her notes and scrawls so alien
that, though I tried, I couldn't get (behind
this gloss or that) back to the time she wrote
to guess what experiences she had in mind,
the living context of some scribbled note;
or see the girl beneath the purple ink
who chose this phrase or that to underline,
the mood, the boy, that lay behind her thinking—
but they were thoughts I recognized as mine;
and though there were words I couldn't even read,
blobs and cross-outs; and though not a jot
remained of her old existence—I agreed
with the young annotator's every thought:
A clever girl. So what would she see fit
to comment on—and what would she have to say
about the years that she and I have written
since—before we put the book away?
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c)2008 by Deborah
Warren, whose most recent book of poems is "Dream with
Flowers and Bowl of Fruit," University of Evansville
Press, 2008. Poem reprinted from the "Hudson Review,"
Vol. LXI, no. 3, Autumn 2008, and reprinted by
permission of the author and publisher. Introduction
copyright (c)2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept
unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 218
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Here is one of my favorite mother-daughter poems, by
Marie Howe, who lives in New York City and who has a
charming little girl.
Hurry
We stop at the dry cleaners and the grocery store
and the gas station and the green market and
Hurry up honey, I say, hurry,
as she runs along two or three steps behind me
her blue jacket unzipped and her socks rolled down.
Where do I want her to hurry to? To her grave?
To mine? Where one day she might stand all grown?
Today, when all the errands are finally done, I say to
her,
Honey I'm sorry I keep saying Hurry--
you walk ahead of me. You be the mother.
And, Hurry up, she says, over her shoulder, looking
back at me, laughing. Hurry up now darling, she says,
hurry, hurry, taking the house keys from my hands.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c)2008 by Marie Howe,
and reprinted from "When She Named Fire," ed., Andrea
Hollander Budy, Autumn House Press, 2009. First
published in "The Kingdom of the Ordinary" by Marie
Howe, W.W. Norton, 2008. Used by permission of Marie
Howe and the publisher. Introduction copyright (c)2009
by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author,
Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate
Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from
2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 217
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
American literature is rich with poems about the passage
of time, and the inevitability of change, and how these
affect us. Here is a poem by Kevin Griffith, who lives
in Ohio, in which the years accelerate by their passing.
Spinning
I hold my two-year-old son
under his arms and start to twirl.
His feet sway away from me
and the day becomes a blur.
Everything I own is flying into space:
yard toys, sandbox, tools,
garage and house,
and, finally, the years of my life.
When we stop, my son is a grown man,
and I am very old. We stagger
back into each other's arms
one last time, two lost friends
heavy with drink,
remembering the good old days.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c)2006 by Kevin
Griffith, whose most recent book of poetry is "Denmark,
Kangaroo, Orange," Pearl Editions, 2007. Poem reprinted
from "Mid-American Review," Vol. 26, no. 2, 2006, by
permission of Kevin Griffith and the publisher.
Introduction copyright (c)2009 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 216
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Judy Loest lives in Knoxville and, like many fine
Appalachian writers, her poems have a welcoming
conversational style, rooted in that region's
storytelling tradition. How gracefully she sweeps us
into the landscape and the scene!
Faith
Leaves drift from the cemetery oaks onto late grass,
Sun-singed, smelling like straw, the insides of old
barns.
The stone angel's prayer is uninterrupted by the
sleeping
Vagrant at her feet, the lone squirrel, furtive amid the
litter.
Someone once said my great-grandmother, on the day she
died,
rose from her bed where she had lain, paralyzed and mute
For two years following a stroke, and dressed
herself--the good
Sunday dress of black crepe, cotton stockings, sensible,
lace-up shoes.
I imagine her coiling her long white braid in the silent
house,
Lying back down on top of the quilt and folding her
hands,
Satisfied. I imagine her born-again daughters, brought
up
In that tent-revival religion, called in from kitchens
and fields
To stand dismayed by her bed like the sisters of
Lazarus,
Waiting for her to breathe, to rise again and tell them
what to do.
Here, no cross escapes the erosion of age, no voice
breaks
The silence; the only certainty in the crow's flight
Or the sun's measured descent is the coming of winter.
Even the angel's outstretched arms offer only a
formulated
Grace, her blind blessings as indiscriminate as acorns,
Falling on each of us, the departed and the leaving.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c)2007 by Judy Loest.
Poem reprinted from "After Appalachia," Finishing Line
Press, 2007, by permission of Judy Loest and the
publisher. Introduction copyright (c)2009 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 215
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
To commemorate Mother's Day, here's a lovely poem by
David Wojahn of Virginia, remembering his mother after
forty years.
Walking to School, 1964
Blurring the window, the snowflakes' numb white
lanterns.
She's brewed her coffee, in the bathroom sprays cologne
And sets her lipstick upright on the sink.
The door ajar, I glimpse the yellow slip,
The rose-colored birthmark on her shoulder.
Then she's dressed--the pillbox hat and ersatz fur,
And I'm dressed too, mummified in stocking cap
And scarves, and I walk her to the bus stop
Where she'll leave me for my own walk to school,
Where she'll board the bus that zigzags to St. Paul
As I watch her at the window, the paperback
Romance already open on her lap,
The bus laboring off into snow, her good-bye kiss
Still startling my cheek with lipstick trace.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c)1990 by David Wojahn,
whose most recent book of poems is "Interrogation
Palace: New and Selected Poems 1982-2004," University of
Pittsburgh Press, 2006. "Walking to School, 1964" is
from the longer poem "White Lanterns," printed in
"Poetry," Vol. 157, 1990, by permission of David Wojahn
and the publisher. Introduction copyright (c)2009 by
The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted
Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant
in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We
do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 214
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Sometimes I wonder at my wife's forbearance. She's heard
me tell the same stories dozens of times, and she still
politely laughs when she should. Here's a poem by Susan
Browne, of California, that treats an oft-told story
with great tenderness.
On Our Eleventh Anniversary
You're telling that story again about your childhood,
when you were five years old and rode your blue bicycle
from Copenhagen to Espergaerde, and it was night
and snowing by the time you arrived,
and your grandparents were so relieved to see you,
because all day no one knew where you were,
you had vanished. We sit at our patio table under a
faded green
umbrella, drinking wine in California's blue autumn,
red stars of roses along the fence, trellising over the
roof
of our ramshackle garage. Too soon the wine glasses will
be empty,
our stories told, the house covered with pine needles
the wind
has shaken from the trees. Other people will live here.
We will vanish like children who traveled far in the
dark,
stars of snow in their hair, riding to enchanted
Espergaerde.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c)2007 by Susan
Browne, whose most recent book of poems is "Buddha's
Dogs," Four Way Books, 2004. Poem reprinted from
"Mississippi Review" Vol. 35, nos. 1-2, Spring 2007, and
reprinted by permission of the author and publisher.
Introduction copyright (c)2009 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 213
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Bill Holm, one of the most intelligent and engaging
writers of our northern plains, died on February 25th.
He will be greatly missed. He and I were of the same
generation and we shared the same sense of wonder,
amusement, and skepticism about the course of
technology. I don't yet own an Earbud, but I won't need
to, now that we have Bill's poem.
Earbud
Earbud--a tiny marble sheathed in foam
to wear like an interior earring so you
can enjoy private noises wherever you go,
protected from any sudden silence.
Only check your batteries, then copy
a thousand secret songs and stories
on the tiny pod you carry in your pocket.
You are safe now from other noises made
by other people, other machines, by chance,
noises you have not chosen as your own.
To get your attention, I touch your arm
to show you the tornado or the polar bear.
Sometimes I catch you humming or talking to the air
as if to a shrunken lover waiting in your ear.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c)2008 by Bill Holm,
whose most recent book of poems is "Playing the Black
Piano," Milkweed Editions, 2004. Poem reprinted by
permission of Bill Holm. Introduction copyright (c)2009
by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author,
Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate
Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from
2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 212
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
We've published this column about American life for over
four years, and we have finally found a poem about one
of the great American pastimes, bowling. "The Big
Lebowski" caught bowling on film, and this poem by Regan
Huff of Georgia captures it in words.
Occurrence on Washburn Avenue
Alice's first strike gets a pat on the back,
her second a cheer from Betty Woszinski
who's just back from knee surgery. Her third—
"A turkey!" Molly calls out—raises everyone's eyes.
They clap. Teresa looks up from the bar.
At the fourth the girls stop seeing their own pins
wobble.
They watch the little X's fill the row on Alice's
screen—
That's five. That's six. There's a holy space
around her like a saint come down to bowl
with the Tuesday Ladies in Thorp, Wisconsin.
Teresa runs to get Al, and Fran calls Billy
at the Exxon. The bar crowds with silent men.
No one's cheering. No one's bowling now
except Alice's team, rolling their balls
to advance the screen around to Alice, who's stopped
even her nervous laugh, her face blank and smooth
with concentration. It can't go on
and then it does go on, the white bar
reading "Silver Dollar Chicken" lowering and clearing
nothing, then lowering and clearing nothing again.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c)2008 by Regan Huff
and reprinted from the "Beloit Poetry Journal," Vol. 59,
no. 1, by permission of Regan Huff and the publisher.
Introduction copyright (c) 2009 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 211
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Some of you are so accustomed to flying that you no
longer sit by the windows. But I'd guess that at one
time you gazed down, after dark, and looked at the
lights below you with innocent wonder. This poem by Anne
Marie Macari of New Jersey perfectly captures the
gauziness of those lights as well as the loneliness that
often accompanies travel.
From the Plane
It is a soft thing, it has been sifted
from the sieve of space and seems
asleep there under the moths of light.
Cluster of dust and fire, from up here
you are a stranger and I am dropping
through the funnel of air to meet you.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c)2008 by Anne Marie
Macari and reprinted from "She Heads into the
Wilderness," Autumn House Press, 2008, by permission of
Anne Marie Macari. Introduction copyright (c) 2009 by
The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted
Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant
in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We
do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 210
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
My father was the manager of a store in which chairs
were strategically placed for those dutiful souls
waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting for
shoppers. Such patience is the most exhausting work
there is, or so it seems at the time. This poem by
Joseph O. Legaspi perfectly captures one of those
scenes.
At the Bridal Shop
The gowns and dresses hang
like fleece in their glaring
whiteness, sheepskin-softness,
the ruffled matrimonial love in which the brides-
in-waiting dance around, expectantly,
hummingbirds to tulips. I was dragged here:
David's Bridal, off the concrete-gray arterial
highways of a naval town. I sink into the flush
bachelors' couch, along with other men sprinkled
throughout the shop, as my friend and her female
compatriots parade
taffeta dresses in monstrous shades of
pastels--persimmons,
lilacs, periwinkles--the colors of weddings and
religious
holidays. Trains drag on the floor, sleeves drape
like limp, pressed sheets of candied fruits,
ribbons fluttering like pale leaves. I watch
families gathered together: the women, like worshippers,
circling around the smiling brides-to-be, as if they
were
the anointed ones. The men, in turn, submerge
deeper into couches, into sleep, while the haloed,
veiled women cannot contain their joy,
they flash their winning smiles, and they are beautiful.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c)2007 by Joseph O.
Legaspi, whose most recent book of poems is "Imago,"
Cavankerry Press, 2007. Poem reprinted from "Crab
Orchard Review," Vol. 12, no. 2, 2007, by permission of
Joseph O. Legaspi. Introduction copyright (c) 2009 by
The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted
Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant
in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We
do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 209
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I've gotten to the age at which I am starting to strain
to hear things, but I am glad to have gotten to that
age, all the same. Here's a fine poem by Miller Williams
of Arkansas that gets inside a person who is losing her
hearing.
Going Deaf
No matter how she tilts her head to hear
she sees the irritation in their eyes.
She knows how they can read a small rejection,
a little judgment, in every What did you say?
So now she doesn't say What? or Come again?
She lets the syllables settle, hoping they form
some sort of shape that she might recognize.
When they don't, she smiles with everyone else,
and then whoever was talking turns to her
and says, "Break wooden coffee, don't you know?"
She pulls all she can focus into the face
to know if she ought to nod or shake her head.
In that long space her brain talks to itself.
The person may turn away as an act of mercy,
leaving her there in a room full of understanding
with nothing to cover her, neither sound nor silence.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c)1995 by Miller
Williams, whose most recent book of poems is "Time and
the Tilting Earth," Louisiana State University Press,
2008. Poem reprinted from "Points of Departure: Poems by
Miller Williams," by Miller Williams, University of
Illinois Press, 1995, and reprinted by permission of the
author and publisher. Introduction copyright (c) 2009 by
The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted
Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant
in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We
do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 208
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
To have a helpful companion as you travel through life
is a marvelous gift. This poem by Gerald Fleming, a
long-time teacher in the San Francisco public schools,
celebrates just such a relationship.
Long Marriage
You're worried, so you wake her
& you talk into the dark:
Do you think I have cancer, you
say, or Were there worms
in that meat, or Do you think
our son is OK, and it's
wonderful, really—almost
ceremonial as you feel
the vessel of your worry pass
miraculously from you to her—
Gee, the rain sounds so beautiful,
you say—I'm going back to sleep.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c)2005 by Gerald
Fleming. Reprinted from "Swimmer Climbing onto Shore,"
by Gerald Fleming, Sixteen Rivers Press, San Francisco,
2005, by permission of the author. Introduction
copyright (c) 2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept
unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 207
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
People singing, not professionally but just singing for
joy, it's a wonderful celebration of life. In this poem
by Sebastian Matthews of North Carolina, a father and
son happen upon a handful of men singing in a cafe, and
are swept up into their pleasure and community.
Barbershop Quartet,
East Village Grille
Inside the standard lunch hour din they rise, four
seamless voices fused into one, floating somewhere
between a low hum and a vibration, like the sound
of a train rumbling beneath noisy traffic.
The men are hunched around a booth table,
a fire circle of coffee cups and loose fists, leaning in
around the thing they are summoning forth
from inside this suddenly beating four-chambered
heart. I've taken Avery out on a whim, ordered
quesadillas
and onion rings, a kiddy milk with three straws.
We're already deep in the meal, extra napkins
and wipes for the grease coating our faces
and hands like mid-summer sweat. And because
we're happy, lost in the small pleasures of father
and son, at first their voices seem to come from inside
us. Who's that boy singing? Avery asks, unable
to see these men wrapped in their act. I let him
keep looking, rapt. And when no one is paying
attention, I put down my fork and take my boy's hand,
and together we dive into the song. Or maybe it pours
into us, and we're the ones brimming with it.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c)2008 by Sebastian
Matthews, whose collection of poems, "We Generous," was
published by Red Hen Press, 2007. Poem reprinted from
"The Chattahoochee Review," V. 28, no. 2,3, 2008 by
permission of Sebastian Matthews. Introduction
copyright (c) 2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept
unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 206
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Ah, yes, the mid-life crisis. And there's a lot of
mid-life in which it can happen. Jerry Lee Lewis sang of
it so well in "He's thirty-nine and holding, holding
everything he can." And here's a fine poem by Matthew
Vetter, portraying just such a man.
Wild Flowers
At fifty-six, having left my mother,
my father buys a motorcycle.
I imagine him because
it is the son's sorrowful assignment
to imagine his father: there,
hunched on his mount,
with black boots, with bad teeth,
between shifts at the mill,
ripping furrows in the backroads,
past barn and field and silo,
past creek and rock,
past the brown mare,
sleek in her impertinence,
never slowing until he sees
the bull. He stops, pulls
his bike to the side of the road,
where golden rod and clover grow,
walks up to the fence, admires
its horns, its wet snout snorting and blowing
its breath, its girth, its trampling
of small wild flowers.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c)2008 by Matthew
Vetter. Reprinted from "The Louisville Review," No. 63,
Spring 2008, by permission of Matthew Vetter.
Introduction copyright (c) 2009 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 205
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Memories have a way of attaching themselves to objects,
to details, to physical tasks, and here, George Bilgere,
an Ohio poet, happens upon mixed feelings about his
mother while slicing a head of cabbage.
Corned Beef and Cabbage
I can see her in the kitchen,
Cooking up, for the hundredth time,
A little something from her
Limited Midwestern repertoire.
Cigarette going in the ashtray,
The red wine pulsing in its glass,
A warning light meaning
Everything was simmering
Just below the steel lid
Of her smile, as she boiled
The beef into submission,
Chopped her way
Through the vegetable kingdom
With the broken-handled knife
I use tonight, feeling her
Anger rising from the dark
Chambers of the head
Of cabbage I slice through,
Missing her, wanting
To chew things over
With my mother again.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2002 by George
Bilgere, whose most recent book of poetry is "Haywire,"
Utah State University Press, 2006. Poem reprinted from
"The Good Kiss," published by The University of Akron
Press, 2002, by permission of the author and publisher.
Introduction copyright (c) 2009 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 204
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Memories form around details the way a pearl forms
around a grain of sand, and in this commemoration of an
anniversary, Cecilia Woloch reaches back to grasp a few
details that promise to bring a cherished memory
forward, and succeeds in doing so. The poet lives and
teaches in southern California.
Anniversary
Didn't I stand there once,
white-knuckled, gripping the just-lit taper,
swearing I'd never go back?
And hadn't you kissed the rain from my mouth?
And weren't we gentle and awed and afraid,
knowing we'd stepped from the room of desire
into the further room of love?
And wasn't it sacred, the sweetness
we licked from each other's hands?
And were we not lovely, then, were we not
as lovely as thunder, and damp grass, and flame?
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2008 by Cecilia
Woloch. Reprinted from "Narcissus," by Cecilia Woloch,
Tupelo Press, Dorset, VT, 2008, by permission of Cecilia
Woloch. Introduction copyright (c) 2009 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 203
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
To read in the news that a platoon of soldiers has been
killed is a terrible thing, but to learn the name of
just one of them makes the news even more vivid and sad.
To hold the name of someone or something on our lips is
a powerful thing. It is the badge of individuality and
separateness. Charles Harper Webb, a California poet,
takes advantage of the power of naming in this poem
about the steady extinction of animal species.
The Animals are Leaving
One by one, like guests at a late party
They shake our hands and step into the dark:
Arabian ostrich; Long-eared kit fox; Mysterious
starling.
One by one, like sheep counted to close our eyes,
They leap the fence and disappear into the woods:
Atlas bear; Passenger pigeon; North Island laughing owl;
Great auk; Dodo; Eastern wapiti; Badlands bighorn sheep.
One by one, like grade school friends,
They move away and fade out of memory:
Portuguese ibex; Blue buck; Auroch; Oregon bison;
Spanish imperial eagle; Japanese wolf; Hawksbill
Sea turtle; Cape lion; Heath hen; Raiatea thrush.
One by one, like children at a fire drill, they march
outside,
And keep marching, though teachers cry, "Come back!"
Waved albatross; White-bearded spider monkey;
Pygmy chimpanzee; Australian night parrot;
Turquoise parakeet; Indian cheetah; Korean tiger;
Eastern harbor seal; Ceylon elephant; Great Indian
rhinoceros.
One by one, like actors in a play that ran for years
And wowed the world, they link their hands and bow
Before the curtain falls.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2006 by Charles
Harper Webb. Reprinted from "Amplified Dog," by Charles
Harper Webb, published by Red Hen Press, 2006, by
permission of the author and publisher. Introduction
copyright (c) 2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept
unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 202
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
David Wagoner, who lives in Washington state, is one of
our country's most distinguished poets and the author of
many wonderful books. He is also one of our best at
writing about nature, from which we learn so much. Here
is a recent poem by Wagoner that speaks to perseverance.
The Cherry Tree
Out of the nursery and into the garden
where it rooted and survived its first hard winter,
then a few years of freedom while it blossomed,
put out its first tentative branches, withstood
the insects and the poisons for insects,
developed strange ideas about its height
and suffered the pruning of its quirks and clutters,
its self-indulgent thrusts
and the infighting of stems at cross purposes
year after year. Each April it forgot
why it couldn't do what it had to do,
and always after blossoms, fruit, and leaf-fall,
was shown once more what simply couldn't happen.
Its oldest branches now, the survivors carved
by knife blades, rain, and wind, are sending shoots
straight up, blood red, into the light again.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c)2008 by David
Wagoner, whose most recent book of poetry is "Good
Morning and Good Night," University of Illinois Press,
2005. Reprinted from "Crazyhorse," No. 73, Spring 2008,
by permission of David Wagoner. Introduction copyright
(c) 2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 201
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Don Welch lives in Nebraska and is one of those many
talented American poets who have never received as much
attention as they deserve. His poems are distinguished
by the meticulous care he puts into writing them, and by
their deep intelligence. Here is Welch's picture of a
14-year-old, captured at that awkward and painfully
vulnerable step on the way to adulthood.
At 14
To be shy,
to lower your eyes
after making a greeting.
to know
wherever you go
you'll be called on,
to fear
whoever you're near
will ask you,
to wear
the softer sides of the air
in rooms filled with angers,
your ship
always docked
in transparent slips
whose wharves
are sheerer than membranes.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c)2008 by Don Welch.
Reprinted from "When Memory Gives Dust a Face," by Don
Welch, published by Lewis-Clark Press, 2008, by
permission of Don Welch and the publisher. Introduction
copyright (c) 2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept
unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 200
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Here's a fine poem by Chris Forhan of Indiana, about
surviving the loss of a parent, and which celebrates the
lives that survive it, that go on. I especially like the
parachute floating up and away, just as the lost father
has gone up and away.
What My Father Left Behind
Jam jar of cigarette ends and ashes on his workbench,
hammer he nailed our address to a stump with,
balsa wood steamship, half-finished—
is that him, waving from the stern? Well, good luck to
him.
Slur of sunlight filling the backyard, August's high
wattage,
white blossoming, it's a curve, it comes back. My mother
in a patio chair, leaning forward, squinting, threading
her needle again, her eye lifts to the roof, to my
brother,
who stands and jerks his arm upward—he might be
insulting the sky, but he's only letting go
a bit of green, a molded plastic soldier
tied to a parachute, thin as a bread bag, it rises, it
arcs
against the blue—good luck to it—my sister and I below,
heads tilted back as we stand in the grass, good
luck to all of us, still here, still in love with it.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2008 by Chris
Forhan from his most recent book of poetry "Black Leapt
In," Barrow Street Press, 2009, and reprinted by
permission of Chris Forhan and the publisher. Poem first
appeared in "Pleiades," Vol. 28, no. 1, 2008.
Introduction copyright (c) 2009 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 199
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I'd guess that most of us carry in our memories
landscapes that, far behind us, hold significant
meanings for us. For me, it's a Mississippi River scenic
overlook south of Guttenberg, Iowa. And for you? Here's
just such a memoryscape, in this brief poem by New
Yorker Anne Pierson Wiese.
Inscrutable Twist
The twist of the stream was inscrutable.
It was a seemingly run-of-the-mill
stream that flowed for several miles by the side
of Route 302 in northern Vermont—
and presumably does still—but I've not
been back there for what seems like a long time.
I have it in my mind's eye, the way
one crested a rise and rounded a corner
on the narrow blacktop, going west, and saw
off to the left in the flat green meadow
the stream turning briefly back on itself
to form a perfect loop—a useless light-filled
water noose or fragment of moon's cursive,
a sign or message of some kind—but left behind.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007 by Anne
Pierson Wiese, whose most recent book of poetry is
"Floating City," Louisiana State University Press, 2007.
Poem reprinted from "Ploughshares," Vol. 33, no. 4,
Winter 2007-08 by permission of Anne Pierson Wiese.
Introduction copyright (c) 200p by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 198
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
This column has had the privilege of publishing a number
of poems by young people, but this is the first we've
published by a young person who is also a political
refugee. The poet, Zozan Hawez, is from Iraq, and goes
to Foster High School in Tukwila, Washington. Seattle
Arts & Lectures sponsors a Writers in the Schools
program, and Zozan's poem was encouraged by that
initiative.
Self-Portrait
Born in a safe family
But a dangerous area, Iraq,
I heard guns at a young age, so young
They made a decision to raise us safe
So packed our things
And went far away.
Now, in the city of rain,
I try to forget my past,
But memories never fade.
This is my life,
It happened for a reason,
I happened for a reason.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007 by Seattle
Arts & Lectures. Reprinted from "We Will Carry Ourselves
As Long As We Gaze Into The Sun," Seattle Arts &
Lectures, 2007, by permission of Zozan Hawez and the
publisher. Introduction copyright (c) 2009 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 197
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I suspect that one thing some people have against
reading poems is that they are so often so serious, so
devoid of joy, as if we poets spend all our time
brooding about mutability and death and never having any
fun. Here Cornelius Eady, who lives and teaches in
Indiana, offers us a poem of pure pleasure.
A Small Moment
I walk into the bakery next door
To my apartment. They are about
To pull some sort of toast with cheese
From the oven. When I ask:
What's that smell? I am being
A poet, I am asking
What everyone else in the shop
Wanted to ask, but somehow couldn't;
I am speaking on behalf of two other
Customers who wanted to buy the
Name of it. I ask the woman
Behind the counter for a percentage
Of her sale. Am I flirting?
Am I happy because the days
Are longer? Here's what
She does: She takes her time
Choosing the slices. "I am picking
Out the good ones," she tells me. It's
April 14th. Spring, with five to ten
Degrees to go. Some days, I feel my duty;
Some days, I love my work.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 1997 by Cornelius
Eady, from his most recent book of poetry, "Hardheaded
Weather: New and Selected Poems," A Marian Wood Book,
Putnam, 2008. Reprinted by permission of Cornelius Eady.
Introduction copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 196
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
One of the most effective means for conveying strong
emotion is to invest some real object with one's
feelings, and then to let the object carry those
feelings to the reader. Notice how the gloves in this
short poem by Jose Angel Araguz of Oregon carry the
heavy weight of the speaker's loss.
Gloves
I made up a story for myself once,
That each glove I lost
Was sent to my father in prison
That's all it would take for him
To chart my growth without pictures
Without words or visits,
Only colors and design,
Texture; it was ok then
For skin to chafe and ash,
To imagine him
Trying on a glove,
Stretching it out
My open palm closing
And disappearing
In his fist.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007 by Jose Angel
Araguz. Poem reprinted from "Rattle,"
Vol. 13, no. 2, Winter 2007, by permission of Jose Angel
Araguz. Introduction copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 195
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Here is a poem, much like a prayer, in which the
Michigan poet Conrad Hilberry asks for no more than a
little flare of light, an affirmation, at the end of a
long, cold Christmas day.
Christmas Night
Let midnight gather up the wind
and the cry of tires on bitter snow.
Let midnight call the cold dogs home,
sleet in their fur--last one can blow
the streetlights out. If children sleep
after the day's unfoldings, the wheel
of gifts and griefs, may their breathing
ease the strange hollowness we feel.
Let midnight draw whoever's left
to the grate where a burnt-out log unrolls
low mutterings of smoke until
a small fire wakes in its crib of coals.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2008 by Conrad
Hilberry, whose most recent book of poetry is
"After-Music," Wayne State University Press, 2008. Poem
reprinted from "The Hudson Review," Vol. 60, no. 4,
Winter 2008, by permission of Conrad Hilberry.
Introduction copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 194
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Father and child doing a little math homework together;
it's an everyday occurrence, but here, Russell Libby, a
poet who writes from Three Sisters Farm in central
Maine, presents it in a way that makes it feel deep and
magical.
Applied Geometry
Applied geometry,
measuring the height
of a pine from
like triangles,
Rosa's shadow stretches
seven paces in
low-slanting light of
late Christmas afternoon.
One hundred thirty nine steps
up the hill until the sun is
finally caught at the top of the tree,
let's see,
twenty to one,
one hundred feet plus a few to adjust
for climbing uphill,
and her hands barely reach mine
as we encircle the trunk,
almost eleven feet around.
Back to the lumber tables.
That one tree might make
three thousand feet of boards
if our hearts could stand
the sound of its fall.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007 by Russell
Libby, whose most recent book is "Balance: A Late
Pastoral," Blackberry Press, 2007. Reprinted from "HeartLodge,"
Vol. III, Summer 2007, by permission of Russell Libby.
Introduction copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 193
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
The first two lines of this poem pose a question many of
us may have thought about: how does snow make silence
even more silent? And notice Robert Haight's deft use of
color, only those few flecks of red, and the rest of the
poem pure white. And silent, so silent. Haight lives in
Michigan, where people know about snow.
How Is It That the Snow
How is it that the snow
amplifies the silence,
slathers the black bark on limbs,
heaps along the brush rows?
Some deer have stood on their hind legs
to pull the berries down.
Now they are ghosts along the path,
snow flecked with red wine stains.
This silence in the timbers.
A woodpecker on one of the trees
taps out its story,
stopping now and then in the lapse
of one white moment into another.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2002 by Robert
Haight from his most recent book of poetry, "Emergences
and Spinner Falls," New Issues Poetry and Prose, 2002.
Reprinted by permission of Robert Haight. Introduction
copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept
unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 192
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Most of us love to find things, and to discover a
quarter on the sidewalk can make a whole day seem
brighter. In this poem, Robert Wrigley, who lives in
Idaho, finds what's left of a Bible, and describes it so
well that we can almost feel it in our hands.
Finding a Bible in an Abandoned Cabin
Under dust plush as a moth's wing,
the book's leather cover still darkly shown,
and everywhere else but this spot was sodden
beneath the roof's unraveling shingles.
There was that back-of-the-neck lick of chill
and then, from my index finger, the book
opened like a blasted bird. In its box
of familiar and miraculous inks,
a construction of filaments and dust,
thoroughfares of worms, and a silage
of silverfish husks: in the autumn light,
eight hundred pages of perfect wordless lace.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007 by Robert
Wrigley, whose most recent book of poetry is "Earthly
Meditations: New and Selected Poems," Penguin, 2006.
Poem reprinted from "The Hudson Review," Vol. LIX, no.
4, Winter, 2007, by permission of Robert Wrigley.
Introduction copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 191
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Class, status, privilege; despite all our talk about
equality, they're with us wherever we go. In this poem,
Pat Mora, who grew up in a Spanish speaking home in El
Paso, Texas, contrasts the lives of rich tourists with
the less fortunate people who serve them. The titles of
poems are often among the most important elements, and
this one is loaded with implication.
Fences
Mouths full of laughter,
the turistas come to the tall hotel
with suitcases full of dollars.
Every morning my brother makes
the cool beach new for them.
With a wooden board he smooths
away all footprints.
I peek through the cactus fence
and watch the women rub oil
sweeter than honey into their arms and legs
while their children jump waves
or sip drinks from long straws,
coconut white, mango yellow.
Once my little sister
ran barefoot across the hot sand
for a taste.
My mother roared like the ocean,
"No. No. It's their beach.
It's their beach."
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 1991 by Pat Mora,
whose most recent book of poetry is "Adobe Odes,"
University of Arizona Press, 2007. Poem reprinted from
"Communion," Arte Publico Press, University of Houston,
1991, by permission of the writer and publisher.
Introduction copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 190
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Occupational hazards, well, you have to find yourself in
the occupation to know about those. Here Minnie Bruce
Pratt of Alabama gives us an inside look at a kind of
work we all have benefited from but may never have
thought much about.
Cutting Hair
She pays attention to the hair, not her fingers, and
cuts herself
once or twice a day. Doesn't notice anymore, just if the
blood
starts flowing. Says, Excuse me, to the customer and
walks away
for a band-aid. Same spot on the middle finger over and
over,
raised like a callus. Also the nicks where she snips
between
her fingers, the torn webbing. Also spider veins on her
legs now,
so ugly, though she sits in a chair for half of each
cut, rolls around
from side to side. At night in the winter she sleeps in
white
cotton gloves, Neosporin on the cuts, vitamin E, then
heavy
lotion. All night, for weeks, her white hands lie
clothed like
those of a young girl going to her first party. Sleeping
alone,
she opens and closes her long scissors and the hair
falls under
her hands. It's a good living, kind of like an
undertaker,
the people keep coming, and the hair, shoulder length,
French
twist, braids. Someone has to cut it. At the end she
whisks
and talcums my neck. Only then can I bend and see my
hair,
how it covers the floor, curls and clippings of brown
and silver,
how it shines like a field of scythed hay beneath my
feet.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2003 by Minnie
Bruce Pratt. Reprinted from "The Dirt She Ate: Selected
and New Poems," University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003, by
permission of the publisher. Introduction copyright (c)
2008 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry:
Column 189
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
In celebration of Veteran's Day, here is a telling poem
by Gary Dop, a Minnesota poet. The veterans of World War
II, now old, are dying by the thousands. Here's one
still with us, standing at Normandy, remembering.
On Swearing
In Normandy, at Point Du Hoc,
where some Rangers died,
Dad pointed to an old man
20 feet closer to the edge than us,
asking if I could see
the medal the man held
like a rosary.
As we approached the cliff
the man's swearing, each bulleted
syllable, sifted back
toward us in the ocean wind.
I turned away,
but my shoulder was held still
by my father's hand,
and I looked up at him
as he looked at the man.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007 by Gary Dop.
Reprinted from "Whistling Shade," Summer, 2007, by
permission of Gary Dop. Introduction copyright (c) 2008
by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author,
Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate
Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from
2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry:
Column 188
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I really like this poem by Dick Allen, partially for the
way he so easily draws us in, with his easygoing,
conversational style, but also for noticing what he has
noticed, the overlooked accompanist there on the stage,
in the shadow of the singer.
The Accompanist
I've always worried about you--the man or woman
at the piano bench,
night after night receiving only such applause
as the singer allows: a warm hand please,
for my accompanist. At concerts,
as I watch your fingers on the keys,
and how swiftly, how excellently
you turn sheet music pages,
track the singer's notes, cover the singer's flaws,
I worry about whole lifetimes,
most lifetimes
lived in the shadows of reflected fame;
but then the singer's voice dies
and there are just your last piano notes,
not resentful at all,
carrying us to the end, into those heartfelt cheers
that spring up in little patches from a thrilled
audience
like sudden wildflowers bobbing in a rain
of steady clapping. And I'm on my feet, also,
clapping and cheering for the singer, yes,
but, I think, partially likewise for you
half-turned toward us, balanced on your black bench,
modest, utterly well-rehearsed,
still playing the part you've made yours.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007 by Dick Allen,
whose most recent book of poetry is "Present Vanishing,"
Sarabande Books, 2008. Poem reprinted from "North Dakota
Quarterly," Vol. 74, no. 3, Summer 2007, by permission
of Dick Allen. Introduction copyright (c) 2008 by The
Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted
Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant
in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We
do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry:
Column 187
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I thought that we'd celebrate Halloween with an
appropriate poem, and Iowa poet Dan Lechay's seems just
right. The drifting veils of rhyme and meter disclose a
ghost, or is it a ghost?
Ghost Villanelle
We never saw the ghost, though he was there--
we knew from the raindrops tapping on the eaves.
We never saw him, and we didn't care.
Each day, new sunshine tumbled through the air;
evenings, the moonlight rustled in dark leaves.
We never saw the ghost, though: he was there,
if ever, when the wind tousled our hair
and prickled goosebumps up and down thin sleeves;
we never saw him. And we didn't care
to step outside our room at night, or dare
click off the nightlight: call it fear of thieves.
We never saw the ghost, though he was there
in sunlit dustmotes drifting anywhere,
in light-and-shadow, such as the moon weaves.
We never saw him, though, and didn't care,
until at last we saw him everywhere.
We told nobody. Everyone believes
we never saw the ghost (if he was there),
we never saw him and we didn't care.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2003 by Dan Lechay.
Reprinted from "The Quarry," Ohio University Press,
2003, by permission of Dan Lechay. Introduction
copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept
unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 186
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Every child can be seen as a miracle, and here Minnesota
poet James Lenfestey captures the beautiful mystery of a
daughter.
Daughter
A daughter is not a passing cloud, but permanent,
holding earth and sky together with her shadow.
She sleeps upstairs like mystery in a story,
blowing leaves down the stairs, then cold air, then
warm.
We who at sixty should know everything, know nothing.
We become dull and disoriented by uncertain weather.
We kneel, palms together, before this blossoming altar.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007 by James P.
Lenfestey from his most recent book of poetry, "A
Cartload of Scrolls," Holy Cow! Press, 2007. Reprinted
by permission of the author. Introduction copyright (c)
2008 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 185
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
When I was a boy, there were still a few veterans of the
Spanish American War, and more of The Great War, or
World War I, and now all those have died and those who
served in World War II are passing from us, too. Robert
Hedin, a Minnesota poet, has written a fine poem about
these people.
The Old Liberators
Of all the people in the mornings at the mall,
it's the old liberators I like best,
those veterans of the Bulge, Anzio, or Monte Cassino
I see lost in Automotive or back in Home Repair,
bored among the paints and power tools.
Or the really old ones, the ones who are going fast,
who keep dozing off in the little orchards
of shade under the distant skylights.
All around, from one bright rack to another,
their wives stride big as generals,
their handbags bulging like ripe fruit.
They are almost all gone now,
and with them they are taking the flak
and fire storms, the names of the old bombing runs.
Each day a little more of their memory goes out,
darkens the way a house darkens,
its rooms quietly filling with evening,
until nothing but the wind lifts the lace curtains,
the wind bearing through the empty rooms
the rich far off scent of gardens
where just now, this morning,
light is falling on the wild philodendrons.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 1999 by Robert
Hedin. Reprinted from "The Old Liberators: New and
Selected Poems and Translations," Holy Cow! Press, 1999,
by permission of Robert Hedin. Introduction copyright
(c) 2008 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 184
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I hope it's not just a guy thing, a delight in the
trappings of work. I love this poem by John Maloney, of
Massachusetts, which gives us a close look behind the
windshields of all those pickup trucks we see heading
home from work.
After Work
They're heading home with their lights on, dust and wood
glue,
yellow dome lights on their metallic long beds: 250s,
2500s—
as much overtime as you want, deadline, dotted line,
dazed
through the last few hours, dried primer on their
knuckles,
sawdust calf-high on their jeans, scraped boots, the
rough
plumbing and electric in, way ahead of the game except
for
the check, such a clutter of cans and iced-tea bottles,
napkins,
coffee cups, paper plates on the front seat floor with
cords
and saws, tired above the eyes, back of the beyond,
thirsty.
There's a parade of them through the two-lane highways,
proudest on their way home, the first turn out of the
jobsite,
the first song with the belt off, pure breath of being
alone
for now, for now the insight of a full and answerable
man.
No one can take away the contentment of the first few
miles
and they know they can't describe it, the black and
purple sky.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007 by John
Maloney, whose most recent book of poetry is "Proposal,"
Zoland Books, 1999. Poem reprinted from AGNI online,
2/2007, by permission of John Maloney. Introduction
copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept
unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 183
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Perhaps you made paper leaves when you were in grade
school. I did. But are our memories as richly detailed
as these by Washington, D.C. poet, Judith Harris?
Gathering Leaves in Grade School
They were smooth ovals,
and some the shade of potatoes--
some had been moth-eaten
or spotted, the maples
were starched, and crackled
like campfire.
We put them under tracing paper
and rubbed our crayons
over them, X-raying
the spread of their bones
and black, veined catacombs.
We colored them green and brown
and orange, and
cut them out along the edges,
labeling them deciduous
or evergreen.
All day, in the stuffy air of the classroom,
with its cockeyed globe,
and nautical maps of ocean floors,
I watched those leaves
lost in their own worlds
flap on the pins of the bulletin boards:
without branches or roots,
or even a sky to hold on to.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007 by Judith
Harris, whose most recent collection of poems is "The
Bad Secret," Louisiana State University Press, 2006.
Reprinted from "The Literary Review," Fall 2008, by
permission of Judith Harris. Introduction copyright (c)
2008 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 182
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Poetry has often served to remind us to look more
closely, to see what may have been at first overlooked.
Today's poem is by Kaelum Poulson of Washington state. A
middle school student and already accomplished maker of
poems, he writes of the thankless toils of an unlikely
but entirely necessary member of our community—the crow!
The Crow
So beautiful
but often unseen
a maid of nature
the street cleaner that's everywhere
never thanked
never liked
always ignored
so elegant in a way no one sees
but without it we would
be in trash up to our knees
with the heart of a lion
the mind of a fox
the color of the night sky
a crow
the unpaid workman
that helps in every way
each and every day
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) by Seattle Arts &
Lectures. Reprinted from "The Universal Controversial
Hive: poems, stories, & memoirs by students," Writers in
the Schools, 2006, by permission of the publisher.
Introduction copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 181
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Stuart Kestenbaum, the author of this week's poem, lost
his brother Howard in the destruction of the twin towers
of the World Trade Center. We thought it appropriate to
commemorate the events of September 11, 2001, by sharing
this poem. The poet is the director of the Haystack
Mountain School of Crafts on Deer Isle, Maine.
Prayer for the Dead
The light snow started late last night and continued
all night long while I slept and could hear it
occasionally
enter my sleep, where I dreamed my brother
was alive again and possessing the beauty of youth,
aware
that he would be leaving again shortly and that is the
lesson
of the snow falling and of the seeds of death that are
in everything
that is born: we are here for a moment
of a story that is longer than all of us and few of us
remember, the wind is blowing out of someplace
we don't know, and each moment contains rhythms
within rhythms, and if you discover some old piece
of your own writing, or an old photograph,
you may not remember that it was you and even if it was
once you,
it's not you now, not this moment that the synapses fire
and your hands move to cover your face in a gesture
of grief and remembrance.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007 by Stuart
Kestenbaum. Reprinted from "Prayers & Run-on Sentences,"
Deerbook Editions, 2007, by permission of Stuart
Kestenbaum. Introduction copyright (c) 2008 by The
Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted
Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant
in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We
do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 180
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
What's in a name? All of us have thought at one time or
another about our names, perhaps asking why they were
given to us, or finding meanings within them. Here
Emmett Tenorio Melendez, an eleven-year-old poet from
San Antonio, Texas, proudly presents us with his name
and its meaning.
My name came from. . .
My name came from my great-great-great-grandfather.
He was an Indian from the Choctaw tribe.
His name was Dark Ant.
When he went to get a job out in a city
he changed it to Emmett.
And his whole name was Emmett Perez Tenorio.
And my name means: Ant; Strong; Carry twice
its size.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2000 by Emmett
Tenorio Melendez. Reprinted from "Salting The Ocean: 100
Poems By Young Poets," Greenwillow Books, 2000, by
permission of the editor. Introduction copyright (c)
2008 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 179
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I've always loved shop talk, with its wonderful language
of tools and techniques. This poem by D. Nurkse of
Brooklyn, New York, is a perfect example. I especially
like the use of the verb, lap, in line seven, because
that's exactly the sound a four-inch wall brush makes.
Bushwick: Latex Flat
2001
Sadness of just-painted rooms.
We clean our tools
meticulously, as if currying horses:
the little nervous sash brush
to be combed and primped,
the fat old four-inchers
that lap up space
to be wrapped and groomed,
the ceiling rollers,
the little pencils
that cover nailheads
with oak gloss,
to be counted and packed:
camped on our dropsheets
we stare across gleaming floors
at the door and beyond it
the old city full of old rumors
of conspiracies, gunshots, market crashes:
with a little mallet
we tap our lids closed,
holding our breath, holding our lives
in suspension for a moment:
an extra drop will ruin everything.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007 by D. Nurkse,
whose newest book of poetry "The Border Kingdom," is
forthcoming from Alfred A. Knopf, 2008. Poem reprinted
from "Broken Land: Poems of Brooklyn," ed., Julia
Spicher Kasdorf & Michael Tyrrell, New York University
Press, 2007, by permission of D. Nurkse. Introduction
copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept
unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 178
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
We mammals are ferociously protective of our young, and
we all know not to wander in between a sow bear and her
cubs. Here Minnesota poet Gary Dop, without a moment's
hesitation, throws himself into the water to save a
frightened child.
Father, Child, Water
I lift your body to the boat
before you drown or choke or slip too far
beneath. I didn't think—just jumped, just did
what I did like the physics
that flung you in. My hands clutch under
year-old arms, between your life
jacket and your bobbing frame, pushing you,
like a fountain cherub, up and out.
I'm fooled by the warmth pulsing from
the gash on my thigh, sliced wide and clean
by an errant screw on the stern.
No pain. My legs kick out blood below.
My arms strain
against our deaths to hold you up
as I lift you, crying, reaching, to the boat.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2008 by Gary Dop.
Reprinted from "New Letters", Vol. 74, No. 3, Spring
2008, by permission of Gary Dop. Introduction copyright
(c) 2008 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 177
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Kristen Tracy is a poet from San Francisco who here
captures a moment at a zoo. It's the falling rain, don't
you think, that makes the experience of observing the
animals seem so perfectly truthful and vivid?
Rain at the Zoo
A giraffe presented its head to me, tilting it
sideways, reaching out its long gray tongue.
I gave it my wheat cracker while small drops
of rain pounded us both. Lightning cracked open
the sky. Zebras zipped across the field.
It was springtime in Michigan. I watched
the giraffe shuffle itself backwards, toward
the herd, its bone- and rust-colored fur beading
with water. The entire mix of animals stood
away from the trees. A lone emu shook
its round body hard and squawked. It ran
along the fence line, jerking open its wings.
Perhaps it was trying to shake away the burden
of water or indulging an urge to fly. I can't know.
I have no idea what about their lives these animals
love or abhor. They are captured or born here for us,
and we come. It's true. This is my favorite field.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) Kristen Tracy,
whose most recent teen novel is "Crimes of the Sarahs,"
Simon & Schuster, 2008. Poem reprinted from AGNI online,
9/2007, by permission of Kristen Tracy. Introduction
copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept
unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 176
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Hearts and flowers, that's how some people dismiss
poetry, suggesting that's all there is to it, just a
bunch of sappy poets weeping over love and beauty. Well,
poetry is lots more than that. At times it's a means of
honoring the simple things about us. To illustrate the
care with which one poet observes a flower, here's Frank
Steele, of Kentucky, paying such close attention to a
sunflower that he almost gets inside it.
Sunflower
You're expected to see
only the top, where sky
scrambles bloom, and not
the spindly leg, hairy, fending off
tall, green darkness beneath.
Like every flower, she has a little
theory, and what she thinks
is up. I imagine the long
climb out of the dark
beyond morning glories, day lilies, four o'clocks
up there to the dream she keeps
lifting, where it's noon all day.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2001 by Frank
Steele. Reprinted from "Singing into That Fresh Light,"
co-authored with Peggy Steele, ed., Robert Bly, Blue
Sofa Press, 2001, by permission of Frank Steele.
Introduction copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 175
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
A part of being a parent, it seems, is spending too much
time fearing the worst. Here Berwyn Moore, a
Pennsylvania poet, expresses that fear—irrational, but
exquisitely painful all the same.
Driving to Camp Lend-A-Hand
for Emma Grace
The day we picked our daughter up from camp,
goldenrod lined the road, towheaded scouts
bowing on both sides, the parting of macadam
as we drove, the fields dry, the sky lacy with clouds.
A farmer waved. A horse shrugged its haughty head.
We stopped for corn, just picked, and plums and kale,
sampled pies, still warm, and tarts and honeyed bread.
Sheets on a line ballooned out like a ship's sail.
Time stopped in those miles before we saw her.
For eight days we hadn't tucked her in or brushed
her hair or watched her grow, the week a busy blur
of grown-up bliss. It came anyway, that uprush
of fear--because somewhere a child was dead:
at a market, a subway, a school, in a lunatic's bed.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2006 by Berwyn
Moore, whose most recent book of poetry is "Dissolution
of Ghosts," Cherry Grove Collections, 2005. Poem
reprinted from "Nimrod International Journal of Poetry
and Prose," Vol. 49, no. 2, by permission of Berwyn
Moore. Introduction copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 174
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I'd guess you've all seen a toddler hold something over
the edge of a high-chair and then let it drop, just for
the fun of it. Here's a lovely picture of a small child
learning the laws of physics. The poet, Joelle Biele,
lives in Maryland.
To Katharine: At Fourteen Months
All morning, you've studied the laws
of spoons, the rules of books, the dynamics
of the occasional plate, observed the principles
governing objects in motion and objects
at rest. To see if it will fall, and if it does,
how far, if it will rage like a lost penny
or ring like a Chinese gong—because
it doesn't have to—you lean from your chair
and hold your cup over the floor.
It curves in your hand, it weighs in your palm,
it arches like a wave, it is a dipper
full of stars, and you're the wind timing
the pull of the moon, you're the water
measuring the distance from which we fall.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007 by Joelle
Biele, whose most recent book of poetry is "White
Summer," Southern Illinois University Press, 2002. Poem
reprinted from "West Branch," Fall/Winter, 2007, by
permission of Joelle Biele. Introduction copyright (c)
2008 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 173
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Poets are especially good at investing objects with
meaning, or in drawing meaning from the things of this
world. Here Patrick Phillips of Brooklyn, New York, does
a masterful job of comparing a wrecked piano to his
feelings.
Piano
Touched by your goodness, I am like
that grand piano we found one night on Willoughby
that someone had smashed and somehow
heaved through an open window.
And you might think by this I mean I'm broken
or abandoned, or unloved. Truth is, I don't
know exactly what I am, any more
than the wreckage in the alley knows
it's a piano, filling with trash and yellow leaves.
Maybe I'm all that's left of what I was.
But touching me, I know, you are the good
breeze blowing across its rusted strings.
What would you call that feeling when the wood,
even with its cracked harp, starts to sing?
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. 2008 by Patrick Phillips. Reprinted
from his most recent book of poetry, "Boy," University
of Georgia Press, 2008, by permission of Patrick
Phillips. Introduction copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 172
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I don't often talk about poetic forms in this column,
thinking that most of my readers aren't interested in
how the clock works and would rather be given the time.
But the following poem by Veronica Patterson of Colorado
has a subtitle referring to a form, the senryu, and I
thought it might be helpful to mention that the senryu
is a Japanese form similar to haiku but dealing with
people rather than nature. There; enough said. Now you
can forget the form and enjoy the poem, which is a
beautiful sketch of a marriage.
Marry Me
a senryu sequence
when I come late to bed
I move your leg flung over my side—
that warm gate
nights you're not here
I inch toward the middle
of this boat, balancing
when I turn over in sleep
you turn, I turn, you turn,
I turn, you
some nights you tug the edge
of my pillow under your cheek,
look in my dream
pulling the white sheet
over your bare shoulder
I marry you again
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2000 by Veronica
Patterson, whose most recent book of poetry is "This Is
the Strange Part," Pudding House Publications, 2002.
Poem reprinted from "Swan, What Shores?" New York
University Press, 2000, by permission of Veronica
Patterson and New York University Press. Introduction
copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept
unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 171
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Sometimes I think that people are at their happiest when
they're engaged in activities close to the work of the
earliest humans: telling stories around a fire, taking
care of children, hunting, making clothes. Here an
Iowan, Ann Struthers, speaks of one of those original
tasks, digging in the dirt.
Planting the Sand Cherry
Today I planted the sand cherry with red leaves—
and hope that I can go on digging in this yard,
pruning the grape vine, twisting the silver lace
on its trellis, the one that bloomed
just before the frost flowered over all the garden.
Next spring I will plant more zinnias, marigolds,
straw flowers, pearly everlasting, and bleeding heart.
I plant that for you, old love, old friend,
and lilacs for remembering. The lily-of-the-valley
with cream-colored bells, bent over slightly, bowing
to the inevitable, flowers for a few days, a week.
Now its broad blade leaves are streaked with brown
and the stem dried to a pale hair.
In place of the silent bells, red berries
like rose hips blaze close to the ground.
It is important for me to be down on my knees,
my fingers sifting the black earth,
making those things grow which will grow.
Sometimes I save a weed if its leaves
are spread fern-like, hand-like,
or if it grows with a certain impertinence.
I let the goldenrod stay and the wild asters.
I save the violets in spring. People who kill violets
will do anything.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2004 by Ann
Struthers, whose most recent book of poetry is "What You
Try To Tame," The Coe Review Press, 2004. Poem reprinted
from "Stoneboat & Other Poems," by Ann Struthers, Iowa
Poets Series, The Pterodactyl Press, 1988, by permission
of the writer. Introduction copyright (c) 2008 by The
Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted
Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant
in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We
do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 170
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I've lived all my life on the plains, where no body of
water is more than a few feet deep, and even at that
shallow depth I'm afraid of it. Here Sam Green, who
lives on an island north of Seattle, takes us down into
some really deep, dark water.
Night Dive
Down here, no light but what we carry with us.
Everywhere we point our hands we scrawl
color: bulging eyes, spines, teeth or clinging
tentacles.
At negative buoyancy, when heavy hands
seem to grasp & pull us down, we let them,
we don't inflate our vests, but let the scrubbed cheeks
of rocks slide past in amniotic calm.
At sixty feet we douse our lights, cemented
by the weight of the dark, of water, the grip
of the sea's absolute silence. Our groping
hands brush the open mouths of anemones,
which shower us in particles of phosphor
radiant as halos. As in meditation,
or in deepest prayer,
there is no knowing what we will see.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 1998 by Samuel
Green. Reprinted by permission of the author, Sam Green,
from his book "The Grace of Necessity," Carnegie Mellon
University Press, 2008. First published in "Cistercian
Studies Quarterly", Vol. 33.1, 1998. Introduction
copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept
unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 169
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I remember being scared to death when, at about thirty
years of age, I saw an x-ray of my skull. Seeing one's
self as a skeleton, or receiving any kind of medical
report, even when the news is good, can be unsettling.
Suddenly, you're just another body, a clock waiting to
stop. Here's a telling poem by Rick Campbell, who lives
and teaches in Florida.
Heart
My heart was suspect.
Wired to an EKG,
I walked a treadmill
that measured my ebb
and flow, tracked isotopes
that ploughed my veins,
looked for a constancy
I've hardly ever found.
For a month I worried
as I climbed the stairs
to my office. The mortality
I never believed in
was here now. They
say my heart's ok,
just high cholesterol, but
I know my heart's a house
someone has broken into,
a room you come back
to and know some stranger
with bad intent has been there
and touched all that you love. You know
he can come back. It's his call,
his house now.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2006 by Rick
Campbell and reprinted from "Dixmont," Autumn House
Press, 2008, by permission of the writer. First
published in "The Florida Review," Fall, 2006.
Introduction copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 168
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
So often, reading a poem can in itself feel like a thing
overheard. Here, Mary-Sherman Willis of Virginia
describes the feeling of being stilled by conversation,
in this case barely audible and nearly indecipherable.
The Laughter of Women
From over the wall I could hear the laughter of women
in a foreign tongue, in the sun-rinsed air of the city.
They sat (so I thought) perfumed in their hats and their
silks,
in chairs on the grass amid flowers glowing and swaying.
One spoke and the others rang like bells, oh so witty,
like bells till the sound filled up the garden and
lifted
like bubbles spilling over the bricks that enclosed
them,
their happiness holding them, even if just for the
moment.
Although I did not understand a word they were saying,
their sound surrounded me, fell on my shoulders and
hair,
and burst on my cheeks like kisses, and continued to
fall,
holding me there where I stood on the sidewalk
listening.
As I could not move, I had to hear them grow silent,
and adjust myself to the clouds and the cooling air.
The mumble of thunder rumbled out of the wall
and the smacking of drops as the rain fell everywhere.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007 by
Mary-Sherman Willis. Reprinted from "The Hudson Review,"
Vol. LX, no. 3, (Autumn 2007), by permission of
Mary-Sherman Willis. Introduction copyright (c) 2008 by
The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted
Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant
in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We
do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 167
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Among young people, tattoos are all the rage and,
someday, dermatologists will grow rich as kings removing
them from a lot of middle-aged people who have grown
embarrassed by their colorful skins. I really like this
poem by Sharmila Voorakkara of Ohio.
For the Tattooed Man
Because she broke your heart, "Shannon"'s a badge—
a seven-letter skidmark that scars up
across your chest, a flare of indelible script.
Between "Death or Glory," and "Mama," she rages,
scales the trellis of your rib cage;
her red hair swings down to bracket your ankles, whip
up the braid of your backbone, cuff your wrists. She
keeps
you sleepless with her afterimage,
and each pinned and martyred limb aches for more.
Her memory wraps you like a vise.
How simple the pain that trails and graces
the length of your body. How it fans, blazes,
writes itself over in the blood's tightening sighs,
bruises into wisdom you have no name for.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2005 by Sharmila
Voorakkara, whose most recent book of poetry is "Fire
Wheel," Univ. of Akron Press, 2003. Introduction
copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept
unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 166
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Texas poet R. S. Gwynn is a master of the light touch.
Here he picks up on Gerard Manley Hopkins' sonnet "Pied
Beauty," which many of you will remember from school,
and offers us a picnic instead of a sermon. I hope you
enjoy the feast!
Fried Beauty
Glory be to God for breaded things—
Catfish, steak finger, pork chop, chicken thigh,
Sliced green tomatoes, pots full to the brim
With french fries, fritters, life-float onion rings,
Hushpuppies, okra golden to the eye,
That in all oils, corn or canola, swim
Toward mastication's maw (O molared mouth!);
Whatever browns, is dumped to drain and dry
On paper towels' sleek translucent scrim,
These greasy, battered bounties of the South:
Eat them.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2005 by R. S. Gwynn,
whose most recent book of poetry is "No Word of
Farewell: Poems 1970-2000," Story Line Press, 2001. Poem
reprinted from "Light: A Quarterly of Light Verse," No.
50, Autumn, 2005, by permission of R. S. Gwynn.
Introduction copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 165
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
In "The Moose," a poem much too long to print here, the
late Elizabeth Bishop was able to show a community being
created from a group of strangers on a bus who come in
contact with a moose on the highway. They watch it
together and become one. Here Robert Bly of Minnesota
assembles a similar community, around an eclipse. Notice
how the experience happens to "we," the group, not just
to "me," the poet.
Seeing the Eclipse in Maine
It started about noon. On top of Mount Batte,
We were all exclaiming. Someone had a cardboard
And a pin, and we all cried out when the sun
Appeared in tiny form on the notebook cover.
It was hard to believe. The high school teacher
We'd met called it a pinhole camera,
People in the Renaissance loved to do that.
And when the moon had passed partly through
We saw on a rock underneath a fir tree,
Dozens of crescents—made the same way—
Thousands! Even our straw hats produced
A few as we moved them over the bare granite.
We shared chocolate, and one man from Maine
Told a joke. Suns were everywhere—at our feet.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem (c) 1997 by Robert Bly, whose
most recent book of poetry is "My Sentence Was a
Thousand Years of Joy," Harper Perennial, 2006. Poem
reprinted from "Music, Pictures, and Stories," Holt,
Rinehart & Winston, 2002, by permission of the writer.
Introduction copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 164
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
How often have you wondered what might be going on
inside a child's head? They can be so much more free and
playful with their imaginations than adults, and are so
good at keeping those flights of fancy secret and
mysterious, that even if we were told what they were
thinking we might not be able to make much sense of it.
Here Ellen Bass, of Santa Cruz, California, tells us of
one such experience.
Dead Butterfly
For months my daughter carried
a dead monarch in a quart mason jar.
To and from school in her backpack,
to her only friend's house. At the dinner table
it sat like a guest alongside the pot roast.
She took it to bed, propped by her pillow.
Was it the year her brother was born?
Was this her own too-fragile baby
that had lived--so briefly--in its glassed world?
Or the year she refused to go to her father's house?
Was this the holding-her-breath girl she became there?
This plump child in her rolled-down socks
I sometimes wanted to haul back inside me
and carry safe again. What was her fierce
commitment? I never understood.
We just lived with the dead winged thing
as part of her, as part of us,
weightless in its heavy jar.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007 by Ellen Bass
and reprinted from "The Human Line," 2007, by permission
of Copper Canyon Press,
www.coppercanyonpress.org. Introduction copyright
(c) 2008 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry:
Column 163
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I have always enjoyed poems that celebrate the small
pleasures of life. Here Max Mendelsohn, age 12, of
Weston, Massachusetts, tells us of the joy he finds in
playing with marbles.
Ode to Marbles
I love the sound of marbles
scattered on the worn wooden floor,
like children running away in a game of hide-and-seek.
I love the sight of white marbles,
blue marbles,
green marbles, black,
new marbles, old marbles,
iridescent marbles,
with glass-ribboned swirls,
dancing round and round.
I love the feel of marbles,
cool, smooth,
rolling freely in my palm,
like smooth-sided stars
that light up the worn world.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2004 by The
Children's Art Foundation. Reprinted from "Stone Soup",
May/June, 2004, by permission of the publisher,
www.stonesoup.com.
Introduction copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry:
Column 162
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Though at the time it may not occur to us to call it
"mentoring," there's likely to be a good deal of that
sort of thing going on, wanted or unwanted, whenever a
young person works for someone older. Richard Hoffman of
Massachusetts does a good job of portraying one of those
teaching moments in this poem.
Summer Job
"The trouble with intellectuals," Manny, my boss,
once told me, "is that they don't know nothing
till they can explain it to themselves. A guy like
that,"
he said, "he gets to middle age--and by the way,
he gets there late; he's trying to be a boy until
he's forty, forty-five, and then you give him five
more years until that craziness peters out, and now
he's almost fifty--a guy like that at last explains
to himself that life is made of time, that time
is what it's all about. Aha! he says. And then
he either blows his brains out, gets religion,
or settles down to some major-league depression.
Make yourself useful. Hand me that three-eights
torque wrench--no, you moron, the other one."
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2006 by Richard
Hoffman, and reprinted from his most recent book of
poetry, "Gold Star Road," Barrow Street Press, 2007, by
permission of the poet. Introduction copyright (c) 2008
by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author,
Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate
Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from
2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry:
Column 161
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I may be a little sappy, but I think that almost
everyone is doing the best he or she can, despite all
sorts of obstacles. This poem by Jonathan Holden
introduces us to a young car salesman, who is trying
hard, perhaps too hard. Holden is the past poet laureate
of Kansas and poet in residence at Kansas State
University in Manhattan.
Car Showroom
Day after day, along with his placid
automobiles, that well-groomed
sallow young man had been waiting for
me, as in the cheerful, unchanging
weather of a billboard--pacing
the tiles, patting his tie, knotting, un-
knotting the facade of his smile
while staring out the window.
He was so bad at the job
he reminded me of myself
the summer I failed
at selling Time and Life in New Jersey.
Even though I was a boy
I could feel someone else's voice
crawl out of my mouth,
spoiling every word,
like this cowed, polite kid in his tie
and badge that said Greg,
saying Ma'am to my wife, calling
me Sir, retailing the air with such piety
I had to find anything out the window.
Maybe the rain. It was gray
and as honestly wet as ever. Something
we could both believe.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 1985 by Jonathan
Holden, whose most recent book of poetry is "Knowing:
New & Selected Poems," University of Arkansas Press,
2000. Reprinted from "The Names of the Rapids," The
University of Massachusetts Press, 1985, by permission
of the author. First printed in "Black Warrior Review."
Introduction copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry:
Column 160
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I've mentioned how important close observation is in
composing a vivid poem. In this scene by Arizona poet,
Steve Orlen, the details not only help us to see the
girls clearly, but the last detail is loaded with
suggestion. The poem closes with the car door shutting,
and we readers are shut out of what will happen, though
we can guess.
Three Teenage Girls: 1956
Three teenage girls in tight red sleeveless blouses and
black Capri pants
And colorful headscarves secured in a knot to their
chins
Are walking down the hill, chatting, laughing,
Cupping their cigarettes against the light rain,
The closest to the road with her left thumb stuck out
Not looking at the cars going past.
Every Friday night to the dance, and wet or dry
They get where they're going, walk two miles or get a
ride,
And now the two-door 1950 Dodge, dark green
Darkening as evening falls, stops, they nudge
Each other, peer in, shrug, two scramble into the back
seat,
And the third, the boldest, famous
For twice running away from home, slides in front with
the man
Who reaches across her body and pulls the door shut.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2006 by Steve Orlen.
Reprinted from "The Elephant's Child: New & Selected
Poems 1978-2005" by Steve Orlen, Ausable Press, 2006, by
permission of the author and publisher. Introduction
copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept
unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 159
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Bad news all too often arrives with a ringing telephone,
all too early in the morning. But sometimes it comes
with less emphasis, by regular mail. Here Allan Peterson
of Florida gets at the feelings of receiving bad news by
letter, not by directly stating how he feels but by
suddenly noticing the world that surrounds the moment
when that news arrives.
The Inevitable
To have that letter arrive
was like the mist that took a meadow
and revealed hundreds
of small webs once invisible
The inevitable often
stands by plainly but unnoticed
till it hands you a letter
that says death and you notice
the weed field had been
readying its many damp handkerchiefs
all along
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007 by Allan
Peterson, whose most recent book of poetry is "All the
Lavish in Common," U. of Mass. Pr., 2005, winner of the
Juniper Prize. Reprinted from "The Chattahoochee
Review," Winter 2007, V. 27, no. 2, by permission of the
author. Introduction copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 158
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Putting bed pillows onto the grass to freshen, it's a
pretty humble subject for a poem, but look how Kentucky
poet, Frank Steele, deftly uses a sun-warmed pillow to
bring back the comfort and security of childhood.
Part of a Legacy
I take pillows outdoors to sun them
as my mother did. "Keeps bedding fresh,"
she said. It was April then, too—
buttercups fluffing their frail sails,
one striped bee humming grudges, a crinkle
of jonquils. Weeds reclaimed bare ground.
All of these leaked somehow
into the pillows, looking odd where they
simmered all day, the size of hams, out of place
on grass. And at night I could feel
some part of my mother still with me
in the warmth of my face as I dreamed
baseball and honeysuckle, sleeping
on sunlight.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2000 by Frank
Steele, whose most recent book of poetry is "Singing
into That Fresh Light," co-authored with Peggy Steele,
ed. Robert Bly, Blue Sofa Press, 2001. Reprinted from
"Blue Sofa Review," Vol. II, no. 1, Spring 2000, by
permission of Frank Steele. Introduction copyright (c)
2008 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 157
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
From your school days you may remember A. E. Housman's
poem that begins, "Loveliest of trees, the cherry now/
Is hung with bloom along the bough." Here's a look at a
blossoming cherry, done 120 years later, on site among
the famous cherry trees of Washington, by D.C. poet
Judith Harris.
In Your Absence
Not yet summer,
but unseasonable heat
pries open the cherry tree.
It stands there stupefied,
in its sham, pink frills,
dense with early blooming.
Then, as afternoon cools
into more furtive winds,
I look up to see
a blizzard of petals
rushing the sky.
It is only April.
I can't stop my own life
from hurrying by.
The moon, already pacing.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007 by Judith
Harris, whose most recent collection of poems is "The
Bad Secret," Louisiana State University Press, 2006.
Reprinted by permission of Judith Harris. Introduction
copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept
unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 156
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
We greatly appreciate your newspaper's use of this
column, and today we want to recognize newspaper
employees by including a poem from the inside of a
newsroom. David Tucker is deputy managing editor of the
New Jersey "Star-Ledger" and has been a reporter and
editor at the "Toronto Star" and the "Philadelphia
Inquirer." He was on the "Star-Ledger" team that won the
2005 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news. Mr. Tucker was
awarded a Witter-Bynner fellowship for poetry in 2007 by
former U. S. Poet Laureate, Donald Hall.
Today's News
A slow news day, but I did like the obit about the
butcher
who kept the same store for fifty years. People
remembered
when his street was sweetly roaring, aproned
with flower stalls and fish stands.
The stock market wandered, spooked by presidential
winks,
by micro-winds and the shadows of earnings. News was
stationed
around the horizon, ready as summer clouds to thunder—
but it moved off and we covered the committee meeting
at the back of the statehouse, sat around on our desks,
then went home early. The birds were still singing,
the sun just going down. Working these long hours,
you forget how beautiful the early evening can be,
the big houses like ships turning into the night,
their rooms piled high with silence.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2006 by David
Tucker. Reprinted from "Late for Work" by David Tucker,
Mariner Books, 2006, by permission of the author. First
printed in "Montana Journalism Review." Introduction
copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept
unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 155
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
The American poet Elizabeth Bishop often wrote of how
places--both familiar and foreign--looked, how they
seemed. Here Marianne Boruch of Indiana begins her poem
in this way, too, in a space familiar to us all but made
new--made strange--by close observation.
Hospital
It seems so—
I don't know. It seems
as if the end of the world
has never happened in here.
No smoke, no
dizzy flaring except
those candles you can light
in the chapel for a quarter.
They last maybe an hour
before burning out.
And in this room
where we wait, I see
them pass, the surgical folk—
nurses, doctors, the guy who hangs up
the blood drop—ready for lunch,
their scrubs still starched into wrinkles,
a cheerful green or pale blue,
and the end of a joke, something
about a man who thought he could be—
what? I lose it
in their brief laughter.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2006 by Marianne
Boruch, whose most recent book of poetry is "Grace,
Fallen from," Wesleyan University Press, 2008. Poem
reprinted from "TriQuarterly," Issue 126, by permission
of Marianne Boruch. Introduction copyright (c) 2008 by
The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted
Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant
in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We
do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 154
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Here, poet Yusef Komunyakaa, who teaches at New York
University, shows us a fine portrait of the hard life of
a worker--in this case, a horse—and, through metaphor,
the terrible, clumsy beauty of his final moments.
Yellowjackets
When the plowblade struck
An old stump hiding under
The soil like a beggar's
Rotten tooth, they swarmed up
& Mister Jackson left the plow
Wedged like a whaler's harpoon.
The horse was midnight
Against dusk, tethered to somebody's
Pocketwatch. He shivered, but not
The way women shook their heads
Before mirrors at the five
& dime—a deeper connection
To the low field's evening star.
He stood there, in tracechains,
Lathered in froth, just
Stopped by a great, goofy
Calmness. He whinnied
Once, & then the whole
Beautiful, blue-black sky
Fell on his back.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2001 by Yusef
Komunyakaa, reprinted from "Pleasure Dome: New &
Collected Poems, 1975-1999," Wesleyan Univ. Press, 2001,
by permission. Introduction copyright (c) 2008 by The
Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted
Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant
in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We
do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 153
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
In this endearing short poem by Californian Trish Dugger,
we can imagine "what if?" What if we had been given "a
baker's dozen of hearts?" I imagine many more and
various love poems would be written. Here Ms. Dugger,
Poet Laureate of the City of Encinitas, makes fine use
of the one patched but good heart she has.
Spare Parts
We barge out of the womb
with two of them: eyes, ears,
arms, hands, legs, feet.
Only one heart. Not a good
plan. God should know we
need at least a dozen,
a baker's dozen of hearts.
They break like Easter eggs
hidden in the grass,
stepped on and smashed.
My own heart is patched,
bandaged, taped, barely
the same shape it once was
when it beat fast for you.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2006 by Trish
Dugger. Reprinted from "Magee Park Poets: Anthology
2007," No. 18, Friends of the Carlsbad City Library,
2006, by permission of Trish Dugger. Introduction
copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept
unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 152
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
A child with a sense of the dramatic, well, many of us
have been that child. Here's Carrie Shipers of Missouri
reminiscing about how she once wished for a dramatic
rescue by screaming ambulance, only to find she was
really longing for the comfort of her mother's hands.
Medical History
I wanted it: arc of red and blue
strobing my skin, sirens singing
my praises, the cinching embrace
of the cot as the ambulance
slammed shut and steered away.
More than needle-pierce
or dragging blade, I wanted the swab
of alcohol and cotton, the promise
of gauze-covered cure.
My mother saved anyone
who asked, but never me,
never the way I wanted:
her palms skimming my limbs
for injury, her fingers finding
what hurt, her lips whispering,
I got here just in time.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007 by Carrie
Shipers. Reprinted from "Mid-American Review," Vol. 27,
no. 2, 2007, by permission of the author. Introduction
copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept
unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column 151
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Thirty, forty years ago, there were lots of hitchhikers,
college students, bent old men and old women, and none
of them seemed fearful of being out there on the
highways at the mercy of strangers. All that's changed,
and nobody wants to get in a car with a stranger. Here
Steven Huff of New York tells us about a memorable ride.
Safe
You used to be able to flag a ride in this country.
Impossible now--everyone is afraid
of strangers. Well, there was fear then too,
and it was mutual: drivers versus hitchhikers.
And we rode without seat belts,
insurance or beliefs. People
would see me far ahead on a hill like a seedling,
watch me grow in the windshield
and not know they were going to stop until
they got right up to me. Maybe they wanted
company or thought I'd give them
some excitement. It was the age
of impulse, of lonesome knee jerks. An old woman
stopped, blew smoke in my face
and after I was already in her car she asked me
if I wanted a ride. I'm telling you.
Late one night a construction boss pulled over.
One of his crew had been hit
by the mob, he said as he drove, distraught
and needing to talk to someone.
We rode around for a long time.
He said, I never wore a gun to a funeral before,
but they've gotta be after me too.
Then he looked at me and patted the bulge
in his coat. Don't worry, he said, you're safe.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007 by Steven
Huff, whose latest book of poetry is "More Daring
Escapes," Red Hen Press, 2007. Reprinted from the "Chatauqua
Literary Journal," Issue 4, 2007, by permission of the
author. Introduction copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column 150
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
There's a world of great interest and significance right
under our feet, but most of us don't think to look down.
We spend most of our time peering off into the future,
speculating on how we will deal with whatever is coming
our way. Or dwelling on the past. Here Ed Ochester stops
in the middle of life to look down.
What the Frost Casts Up
A crown of handmade nails, as though
there were a house here once, burned,
where we've gardened for fifteen years;
the ceramic top of an ancient fuse;
this spring the tiny head of a plastic doll--
not much compared to what they find
in England, where every now and then
a coin of the Roman emperors, Severus
or Constantius, works its way up, but
something, as though nothing we've
ever touched wants to stay in the earth,
the patient artifacts waiting, having been lost
or cast away, as though they couldn't bear
the parting, or because they are the only
messengers from lives that were important once,
waiting for the power of the frost
to move them to the mercy of our hands.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2001 by Ed Ochester.
Reprinted from "Unreconstructed: Poems Selected and New"
by Ed Ochester, Autumn House Press, 2007, by permission
of the author and publisher. Introduction copyright (c)
2008 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 149
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Elsewhere in this newspaper you may find some advice for
maintaining and repairing troubled relationships. Here,
in a poem by Linda Pastan of Maryland, is one of those
relationships in need of some help.
The Quarrel
If there were a monument
to silence, it would not be
the tree whose leaves
murmur continuously
among themselves;
nor would it be the pond
whose seeming stillness
is shattered
by the quicksilver
surfacing of fish.
If there were a monument
to silence, it would be you
standing so upright, so unforgiving,
your mute back deflecting
every word I say.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007 by Linda
Pastan, whose most recent book of poetry is "Queen of a
Rainy Country," W. W. Norton & Co., 2006 . Reprinted
from "Solo Cafe 2: Oppression & Forgiveness," Vol. 2,
Solo Press, 2007, by permission of Linda Pastan.
Introduction copyright (c) 2007 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column 148
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I've written about the pleasures of poetry that offers
us vivid scenes but which lets us draw our own
conclusions about the implications of what we're being
shown. The poet can steer us a little by the selection
of details, but a lot of the effect of the poem is in
what is not said, in what we deduce. Lee McCarthy is a
California poet, and here is something seen from across
the street, something quite ordinary yet packed with
life.
Santa Paula
There's a woman kissing a cowboy
across the street. His eight-year-old son
watches from the bus stop bench.
She's really planting one on him,
his Stetson in danger.
It must have been some weekend.
Seeing no room in that embrace for himself,
the boy measures his future, legs
straight out in front of him.
Both hands hold onto a suitcase handle,
thin arms ready to prove themselves.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 1992 by Lee
McCarthy, whose most recent book of poetry is "Good
Girl," Story Line Press, 2002. Reprinted from "Combing
Hair with a Seashell," by Lee McCarthy, Ion Books, 1992,
by permission of the author and publisher. Introduction
copyright (c) 2007 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept
unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column 147
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Our earliest recollections are often imprinted in our
memories because they were associated with some kind of
stress. Here, in an untitled poem, the Nebraska State
Poet, William Kloefkorn, brings back a difficult moment
from many years before, and makes a late confession:
I stand alone at the foot
Of my father's grave,
Trembling to tell:
The door to the granary is open,
Sir,
And someone lost the bucket
To the well.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2004 by William
Kloefkorn, whose most recent book of poetry is "Still
Life Moving", WSC Press, 2007, illustrated with pastel
paintings by Carlos Frey. Reprinted from "Alvin Turner
As Farmer," Logan House, 2004, by permission of the
author and publisher. Introduction copyright (c) 2007 by
The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted
Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant
in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We
do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry: Column 146
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Post-traumatic stress disorder is a new name for "shell
shock," a term once applied only to military veterans.
Here the poet Marvin Bell describes a group of these
emotionally damaged soldiers, gathered together for
breakfast. I'd guess that just about everybody who reads
this column has known one or two men like these.
Veterans of the Seventies
His army jacket bore the white rectangle
of one who has torn off his name. He sat mute
at the round table where the trip-wire veterans
ate breakfast. They were foxhole buddies
who went stateside without leaving the war.
They had the look of men who held their breath
and now their tongues. What is to say
beyond that said by the fathers who bent lower
and lower as the war went on, spines curving
toward the ground on which sons sat sandbagged
with ammo belts enough to make fine lace
of enemy flesh and blood. Now these who survived,
who got back in cargo planes emptied at the front,
lived hiddenly in the woods behind fence wires
strung through tin cans. Better an alarm
than the constant nightmare of something moving
on its belly to make your skin crawl
with the sensory memory of foxhole living.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007 by Marvin
Bell, and reprinted from "Mars Being Red," Copper Canyon
Press, 2007, by permission of the author and publisher.
The poem first appeared in "Gettysburg Review," Summer,
2007. Introduction copyright (c) 2007 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts
.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 145
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
If one believes television commercials, insomnia, that
thief of sleep, torments humans in ever-increasing
numbers. Rynn Williams, a poet working in Brooklyn, New
York, tries here to identify its causes and find a
suitable remedy.
Insomnia
I try tearing paper into tiny, perfect squares--
they cut my fingers. Warm milk, perhaps,
stirred counter-clockwise in a cast iron pan--
but even then there's burning at the edges,
angry foam-hiss. I've been told
to put trumpet flowers under my pillow,
I do: stamen up, the old crone said.
But the pollen stains, and there are bees,
I swear, in those long yellow chambers, echoing,
the way the house does, mocking, with its longevity--
each rib creaking and bending where I'm likely to
break--
I try floating out along the long O of lone,
to where it flattens to loss, and just stay there
disconnecting the dots of my night sky
as one would take apart a house made of sticks,
carefully, last addition to first,
like sheep leaping backward into their pens.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007 by Rynn
Williams, whose most recent book of poetry is "Adonis
Garage," University of Nebraska Press, 2005. Poem
reprinted from "Columbia Poetry Review," no. 20, Spring
2007, by permission of Rynn Williams. Introduction
copyright (c) 2007 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept
unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 144
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I'd guess you've heard it said that the reason we laugh
when somebody slips on a banana peel is that we're happy
that it didn't happen to us. That kind of happiness may
be shameful, but many of us have known it. In the
following poem, the California poet, Jackson Wheeler,
tells us of a similar experience.
How Good Fortune Surprises Us
I was hauling freight
out of the Carolinas
up to the Cumberland Plateau
when, in Tennessee, I saw
from the freeway, at 2 am
a house ablaze.
Water from the firehoses arced
into luminescent rainbows.
The only sound, the dull roar of my truck
passing. I found myself strangely happy.
It was misfortune on that cold night
falling on someone's house,
but not mine
not mine.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007, by Jackson
Wheeler, whose most recent book of poetry is "A Near
Country," Solo Press, 1999. Reprinted from "Rivendell,"
Issue Four, Native Genius, Spring 2007 by permission of
the author. Introduction copyright (c) 2007 by The
Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted
Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant
in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We
do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 143
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Here is Arizona poet Steve Orlen's lovely tribute to the
great opera singer, Maria Callas. Most of us never saw
her perform, or even knew what she looked like, but many
of us listened to her on the radio or on our parents'
record players, perhaps in a parlor like the one in this
poem.
In the House of the Voice of Maria Callas
In the house of the voice of Maria Callas
We hear the baby's cries, and the after-supper
Rattle of silverware, and three clocks ticking
To different tunes, and ripe plums
Sleeping in their chipped bowl, and traffic sounds
Dissecting the avenues outside. We hear, like water
Pouring over time itself, the pure distillate arias
Of the numerous pampered queens who have reigned,
And the working girls who have suffered
The envious knives, and the breathless brides
With their horned helmets who have fallen in love
And gone crazy or fallen in love and died
On the grand stage at their appointed moments--
Who will sing of them now? Maria Callas is dead,
Although the full lips and the slanting eyes
And flared nostrils of her voice resurrect
Dramas we are able to imagine in this parlor
On evenings like this one, adding some color,
Adding some order. Of whom it was said:
She could imagine almost anything and give voice to it.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2001 by Steve Orlen.
Reprinted from "The Elephant's Child: New & Selected
Poems 1978-2005," by Steve Orlen, published by Ausable
Press, 2006, by permission of the author. First
published in The Gettysburg Review. Introduction
copyright (c) 2007 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept
unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 142
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
There's that old business about the tree falling in the
middle of the forest with no one to hear it: does it
make a noise? Here Linda Gregg, of New York, offers us a
look at an elegant beauty that can be presumed to exist
and persist without an observer.
Elegance
All that is uncared for.
Left alone in the stillness
in that pure silence married
to the stillness of nature.
A door off its hinges,
shade and shadows in an empty room.
Leaks for light. Raw where
the tin roof rusted through.
The rustle of weeds in their
different kinds of air in the mornings,
year after year.
A pecan tree, and the house
made out of mud bricks. Accurate
and unexpected beauty, rattling
and singing. If not to the sun,
then to nothing and to no one.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2006 by Linda
Gregg. Reprinted from "In the Middle Distance," Graywolf
Press, 2006, by Linda Gregg, with permission of the
author and publisher. Introduction copyright (c) 2007 by
The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted
Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant
in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We
do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 141
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Life becomes more complicated every day, and each of us
can control only so much of what happens. As for the
rest? Poet Thomas R. Smith of Wisconsin offers some
practical advice.
Trust
It's like so many other things in life
to which you must say no or yes.
So you take your car to the new mechanic.
Sometimes the best thing to do is trust.
The package left with the disreputable-looking
clerk, the check gulped by the night deposit,
the envelope passed by dozens of strangers--
all show up at their intended destinations.
The theft that could have happened doesn't.
Wind finally gets where it was going
through the snowy trees, and the river, even
when frozen, arrives at the right place.
And sometimes you sense how faithfully your life
is delivered, even though you can't read the address.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2003 by Thomas R.
Smith. Reprinted from "Waking before Dawn," Thomas R.
Smith, Red Dragonfly Press, 2007, by permission of the
author. Introduction copyright (c) 2007 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 140
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Here's a holiday poem by Steven Schneider that I like
very much for its light spirit and evocative sensory
detail. Isn't this a party to which you'd like to be
invited?
Chanukah Lights Tonight
Our annual prairie Chanukah party--
latkes, kugel, cherry blintzes.
Friends arrive from nearby towns
and dance the twist to "Chanukah Lights Tonight,"
spin like a dreidel to a klezmer hit.
The candles flicker in the window.
Outside, ponderosa pines are tied in red bows.
If you squint,
the neighbors' Christmas lights
look like the Omaha skyline.
The smell of oil is in the air.
We drift off to childhood
where we spent our gelt
on baseball cards and matinees,
cream sodas and potato knishes.
No delis in our neighborhood,
only the wind howling over the crushed corn stalks.
Inside, we try to sweep the darkness out,
waiting for the Messiah to knock,
wanting to know if he can join the party.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Reprinted from "Prairie Air Show,"
Talking River Publications, 2000, by permission of
Steven Schneider. Poem copyright (c) 2000 by Steven
Schneider. Introduction copyright (c) 2007 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 139
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Man's best friend is, of course, woman's best friend,
too. The Illinois poet, Bruce Guernsey, offers us this
snapshot of a mutually agreed upon dependency that leads
to a domestic communion.
The Lady and the Tramp
As my mother's memory dims
she's losing her sense of smell
and can't remember the toast
blackening the kitchen with smoke
or sniff how nasty the breath of the dog
that follows her yet from room to room,
unable, himself, to hear his own bark.
It's thus they get around,
the wheezing old hound stone deaf
baying like a smoke alarm
for his amnesiac mistress whose back
from petting him is bent forever
as they shuffle towards the flaming toaster
and split the cindered crisp that's left.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007 by Bruce
Guernsey, whose newest book, "New England Primer,"
published by Cherry Grove Collections (WordTech
Communications) is due out in 2008. Poem reprinted from
"Spoon River Poetry Review", Vol. XXVI, no. 2, by
permission of the author. Introduction copyright (c)
2007 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 138
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
You've surely heard it said that the old ought to move
over to make room for the young. But in the best of all
possible worlds, people who love their work should be
able to do it as long as they wish. Those forced to
retire, well, they're a sorry lot. Here the Chicago
poet, Deborah Cummins, shows a man trying to adjust to
life after work.
At a Certain Age
He sits beside his wife who takes the wheel.
Clutching coupons, he wanders the aisles
of Stop & Save. There's no place he must be,
no clock to punch. Sure,
there are bass in the lake, a balsa model
in the garage, the par-three back nine.
But it's not the same.
Time the enemy then, the enemy now.
As he points the remote at the screen
or pauses at the window, staring
into the neighbor's fence but not really seeing it,
he listens to his wife in the kitchen, more amazed
than ever--how women seem to know
what to do. How, with their cycles and timers,
their rolling boils and three-minute eggs,
they wait for something to start. Or stop.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007 by Deborah
Cummins, and reprinted by permission of the author.
Deborah Cummins' most recent book of poetry is "Counting
the Waves," WordTech Communications, 2007. Introduction
copyright (c) 2007 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept
unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 137
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Dill pickles with strawberry jam? Pregnant women are
known to go for late night meals like that. And the
senses can go haywire. Here Jessy Randall, of Colorado
Springs, gives us a look at one such woman.
Superhero Pregnant Woman
Her sense of smell is ten times stronger.
And so her husband smells funny;
she rolls away from him in the bed.
She even smells funny to herself,
but cannot roll away from that.
Why couldn't she get a more useful superpower?
Like the ability to turn invisible, or fly?
The refrigerator laughs at her from its dark corner,
knowing she will have to open it some time
and surrender to its villainous odors.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007 by Jessy
Randall. Reprinted from "A Day in Boyland," by Jessy
Randall, published by Ghost Road Press, 2007, by
permission of the author. Introduction copyright (c)
2007 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 136
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Here's a fine seasonal poem by Todd Davis, who lives and
teaches in Pennsylvania. It's about the drowsiness that
arrives with the early days of autumn. Can a bear
imagine the future? Surely not as a human would, but
perhaps it can sense that the world seems to be slowing
toward slumber. Who knows?
Sleep
On the ridge above Skelp Road
bears binge on blackberries and apples,
even grapes, knocking down
the Petersens' arbor to satisfy the sweet
hunger that consumes them. Just like us
they know the day must come when
the heart slows, when to take one
more step would mean the end of things
as they should be. Sleep is a drug;
dreams its succor. How better to drift
toward another world but with leaves
falling, their warmth draping us,
our stomachs full and fat with summer?
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007 by Todd Davis.
Reprinted from "Some Heaven," by Todd Davis, published
by Michigan State University Press, 2007, by permission
of the author and publisher. Introduction copyright (c)
2007 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 135
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
What motivates us to keep moving forward through our
lives, despite all the effort required to do so? Here,
North Carolina poet Ruth Moose attributes human
characteristics to an animal to speculate upon what that
force might be.
The Crossing
The snail at the edge of the road
inches forward, a trim gray finger
of a fellow in pinstripe suit.
He's burdened by his house
that has to follow
where he goes. Every inch,
he pulls together
all he is,
all he owns,
all he was given.
The road is wide
but he is called
by something
that knows him
on the other side.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2004 by Ruth Moose,
whose most recent book of poetry is "The Sleepwalker,"
Main Street Rag, 2007. Reprinted from "75 Poems on
Retirement," edited by Robin Chapman and Judith Strasser,
published by University of Iowa Press, 2007, by
permission of the author and publisher. Introduction
copyright (c) 2007 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept
unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 134
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
When ancient people gathered around the fire at
nightfall, I like to think that they told stories, about
where each of them had been that day, and what that
person had seen in the forest. Those were among our
first stories, and we still venture into the world and
return to tell others what happened. It's part of
community. Here Kathleen Flenniken of Washington tells
us about a woman she saw at an airport.
Old Woman With Protea Flowers, Kahalui Airport
She wears the run-down slippers of a local
and in her arms, five rare protea
wrapped in newsprint, big as digger pine cones.
Our hands can't help it and she lets us touch.
Her brother grows them for her, upcountry.
She's spending the day on Oahu
with her flowers and her dogs. Protea
for four dogs' graves, two for her favorite.
She'll sit with him into the afternoon
and watch the ocean from Koolau.
An old woman's paradise, she tells us,
and pets the flowers' soft, pink ears.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007 by Kathleen
Flenniken, whose most recent book of poetry is "Famous,"
University of Nebraska Press, 2006. Poem reprinted by
permission of the author. Introduction copyright (c)
2007 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 133
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
It may be that we are most alone when attending
funerals, at least that's how it seems to me. By alone I
mean that even among throngs of mourners we pull back
within ourselves and peer out at life as if through a
window. David Baker, an Ohio poet, offers us a picture
of a funeral that could be anybody's.
Afterwards
A short ride in the van, then the eight of us
there in the heat—white shirtsleeves sticking,
the women's gloves off—fanning our faces.
The workers had set up a big blue tent
to help us at graveside tolerate the sun,
which was brutal all afternoon as if
stationed above us, though it moved limb
to limb through two huge, covering elms.
The long processional of neighbors, friends,
the town's elderly, her beauty-shop patrons,
her club's notables. . . The world is full of
prayers arrived at from afterwards, he said.
Look up through the trees—the hands, the leaves
curled as in self-control or quietly hurting,
or now open, flat-palmed, many-fine-veined,
and whether from heat or sadness, waving.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) by David Baker,
whose most recent book of poetry is "Midwest Eclogue,"
W. W. Norton, 2006. Reprinted from "Virginia Quarterly
Review," Winter, 2004, by permission of David Baker.
Introduction copyright (c) 2007 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 132
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Children at play give personalities to lifeless objects,
and we don't need to give up that pleasure as we grow
older. Poets are good at discerning life within what
otherwise might seem lifeless. Here the poet Peter
Pereira, a family physician in the Seattle area,
contemplates a smiling statue, and in that moment of
contemplation the smile is given by the statue to the
man.
The Garden Buddha
Gift of a friend, the stone Buddha sits zazen,
prayer beads clutched in his chubby fingers.
Through snow, icy rain, the riot of spring flowers,
he gazes forward to the city in the distance--always
the same bountiful smile upon his portly face.
Why don't I share his one-minded happiness?
The pear blossom, the crimson-petaled magnolia,
filling me instead with a mixture of nostalgia
and yearning. He's laughing at me, isn't he?
The seasons wheeling despite my photographs
and notes, my desire to make them pause.
Is that the lesson? That stasis, this holding on,
is not life? Now I'm smiling, too--the late cherry,
its soft pink blossoms already beginning to scatter;
the trillium, its three-petaled white flowers
exquisitely tinged with purple as they fall.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) by Peter Pereira.
Reprinted from "What's Written on the Body" by Peter
Pereira, Copper Canyon Press, 2007, by permission of the
author and publisher. Introduction copyright (c) 2007 by
The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted
Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant
in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We
do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 131
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Sometimes beginning writers tell me they get discouraged
because it seems that everything has already been
written about. But every experience, however
commonplace, is unique to he or she who seizes it. There
have undoubtedly been many poems about how dandelions
pass from yellow to wind-borne gossamer, but this one by
the Maryland poet, Jean Nordhaus, offers an experience
that was unique to her and is a gift to us.
A Dandelion for My Mother
How I loved those spiky suns,
rooted stubborn as childhood
in the grass, tough as the farmer's
big-headed children--the mats
of yellow hair, the bowl-cut fringe.
How sturdy they were and how
slowly they turned themselves
into galaxies, domes of ghost stars
barely visible by day, pale
cerebrums clinging to life
on tough green stems. Like you.
Like you, in the end. If you were here,
I'd pluck this trembling globe to show
how beautiful a thing can be
a breath will tear away.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2006 by Jean
Nordhaus. Reprinted from "Innocence," by Jean Nordhaus,
published by Ohio State University Press, 2006, with
permission of the publisher. Introduction copyright (c)
2007 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 130
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
A number of American poets are adept at describing
places and the people who inhabit them. Galway Kinnell's
great poem, "The Avenue Bearing the Initial of Christ
into the New World" is one of those masterpieces, and
there are many others. Here Anne Pierson Wiese, winner
of the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American
Poets, adds to that tradition.
Columbus Park
Down at the end of Baxter Street, where Five Points
slum used to be, just north of Tombs, is a pocket park.
On these summer days the green plane trees' leaves
linger heavy as a noon mist above
the men playing mah jongg--more Chinese
in the air than English. The city's composed
of village greens; we rely on the Thai
place on the corner: Tom Kha for a cold,
jasmine tea for fever, squid for love, Duck Yum
for loneliness. Outside, the grove of heat,
narrow streets where people wrestle rash and unseen
angels; inside, the coolness of a glen and the wait
staff
in their pale blue collars offering ice water.
Whatever you've done or undone, there's a dish for you
to take out or eat in: spice for courage, sweet for
chagrin.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2003 by Anne
Pierson Wiese. Reprinted from "Floating City," by Anne
Pierson Wiese, published by Louisiana State University
Press, 2007, with the permission of the author and
publisher. Poem first published in "West Branch."
Introduction copyright (c) 2007 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 129
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
North Carolina poet, Betty Adcock, has written scores of
beautiful poems, almost all of them too long for this
space. Here is an example of her shorter work, the
telling description of a run-down border town.
Louisiana Line
The wooden scent of wagons,
the sweat of animals--these places
keep everything--breath of the cotton gin,
black damp floors of the icehouse.
Shadows the color of a mirror's back
break across faces. The luck
is always bad. This light is brittle,
old pale hair kept in a letter.
The wheeze of porch swings and lopped gates
seeps from new mortar.
Wind from an axe that struck wood
a hundred years ago
lifts the thin flags of the town.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 1975 by Betty
Adcock. Reprinted from "Walking Out," Louisiana State
University Press, 1975, with permission of Betty Adcock,
whose most recent book is "Intervale: New and Selected
Poems," Louisiana State University Press, 2001.
Introduction copyright (c) 2006 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 128
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Our poet this week is 16-year-old Devon Regina DeSalva
of Los Angeles, California, who says she wrote this poem
to get back at her mother, only to find that her mother
loved the poem.
Snip Your Hair
I'll snip your hair
Cut it all off until you look like a man
I will replace your weight loss bars with bars to make
you gain
I will cut your credit cards in half
I will shrink all your clothes
Every trick in the book I will try
I will give all your shoes to the dog
I will do it all
Crazy is where you will be driven
Off a cliff you will want to jump
Then when I am all done
I will look at you with big doughy eyes
And I will say I am sorry
But I have my fingers crossed
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Reprinted from "Untangled: Stories &
Poems from the Women & Girls of WriteGirl," WriteGirl
Publishers, 2006. Poem copyright (c) 2006 by WriteGirl
Publishers and used by permission. Introduction
copyright (c) 2006 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept
unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 127
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Poet Marianne Boruch of Indiana finds a bird's nest near
her door. It is the simplest of discoveries, yet she
uses it to remind us that what at first seems ordinary,
even "made a mess of," can be miraculously transformed
upon careful reflection.
Nest
I walked out, and the nest
was already there by the step. Woven basket
of a saint
sent back to life as a bird
who proceeded to make
a mess of things. Wind
right through it, and any eggs
long vanished. But in my hand it was
intricate pleasure, even the thorny reeds
softened in the weave. And the fading
leaf mold, hardly
itself anymore, merely a trick
of light, if light
can be tricked. Deep in a life
is another life. I walked out, the nest
already by the step.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 1996 by Marianne
Boruch, whose most recent book of poetry is "Poems: New
and Selected," Oberlin College Press, 2004. Reprinted
from "A Stick That Breaks And Breaks," Oberlin College
Press, 1997, with permission of the author. First
published in the journal "Field." Introduction copyright
(c) 2006 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 126
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
The British writer Virginia Woolf wrote about the
pleasures of having a room of one's own. Here the
Vermont poet Karin Gottshall shows us her own sort of
private place.
The Raspberry Room
It was solid hedge, loops of bramble and thorny
as it had to be with its berries thick as bumblebees.
It drew blood just to get there, but I was queen
of that place, at ten, though the berries shook like
fists
in the wind, daring anyone to come in. I was trying
so hard to love this world--real rooms too big and full
of worry to comfortably inhabit--but believing I was
born
to live in that cloistered green bower: the raspberry
patch
in the back acre of my grandparents' orchard. I was
cross-
stitched and beaded by its fat, dollmaker's needles. The
effort
of sliding under the heavy, spiked tangles that tore
my clothes and smeared me with juice was rewarded
with space, wholly mine, a kind of room out of
the crush of the bushes with a canopy of raspberry
dagger-leaves and a syrup of sun and birdsong.
Hours would pass in the loud buzz of it, blood
made it mine--the adventure of that red sting singing
down my calves, the place the scratches brought me to:
just space enough for a girl to lie down.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007 by Karin
Gottshall. Reprinted from "Crocus," by Karin Gottshall,
published by Fordham University Press, 2007, with
permission of the author and publisher. Introduction
copyright (c) 2006 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept
unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 125
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
The American poet, Ezra Pound, once described the faces
of people in a rail station as petals on a wet black
bough. That was roughly seventy-five years ago. Here
Barry Goldensohn of New York offers a look at a
contemporary subway station. Not petals, but people all
the same.
Subway
The station platform, clean and broad, his stage
for push-ups, sit-ups, hamstring stretch,
as he laid aside his back pack, from which
his necessaries bulged, as he bulged
through jeans torn at butt, knee and thigh,
in deep palaver with himself--sigh,
chatter, groan. Deranged but common.
We sat at a careful distance to spy
on his performance, beside a woman
in her thirties, dressed as in her teens--
this is L.A.--singing to herself.
How composed, complete and sane
she seemed. A book by the Dalai Lama
in her hands, her face where pain and wrong
were etched, here becalmed, with faint chirps
leaking from the headphones of her walkman.
Not talking. Singing, lost in song.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2006 by Barry
Goldensohn, whose most recent book of poetry is "East
Long Pond" (with Lorrie Goldensohn), Cummington Press,
1998. Reprinted from "Salmagundi," Fall, 2006, No. 152,
with permission of the author. Introduction copyright
(c) 2006 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 124
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Here is a lovely poem about survival by Patrick Phillips
of New York. People sometimes ask me "What are poems
for?" and "Matinee" is an example of the kind of writing
that serves its readers, that shows us a way of carrying
on.
Matinee
After the biopsy,
after the bone scan,
after the consult and the crying,
for a few hours no one could find them,
not even my sister,
because it turns out
they'd gone to the movies.
Something tragic was playing,
something epic,
and so they went to the comedy
with their popcorn
and their cokes,
the old wife whispering everything twice,
the old husband
cupping a palm to his ear,
as the late sun lit up an orchard
behind the strip mall,
and they sat in the dark holding hands.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2006 by Patrick
Phillips, whose latest book is "Chattahoochee,"
University of Arkansas Press, 2004. Reprinted from the
"Greensboro Review," Fall 2006, No. 80, with permission
of the author. Introduction copyright (c) 2006 by The
Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted
Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant
in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We
do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 123
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
There is a type of poem, the Found Poem, that records an
author's discovery of the beauty that occasionally
occurs in the everyday discourse of others. Such a poem
might be words scrawled on a wadded scrap of paper, or
buried in the classified ads, or on a billboard by the
road. The poet makes it his or her poem by holding it up
for us to look at. Here the Washington, D.C., poet
Joshua Weiner directs us to the poetry in a letter
written not by him but to him.
Found Letter
What makes for a happier life, Josh, comes to this:
Gifts freely given, that you never earned;
Open affection with your wife and kids;
Clear pipes in winter, in summer screens that fit;
Few days in court, with little consequence;
A quiet mind, a strong body, short hours
In the office; close friends who speak the truth;
Good food, cooked simply; a memory that's rich
Enough to build the future with; a bed
In which to love, read, dream, and re-imagine love;
A warm, dry field for laying down in sleep,
And sleep to trim the long night coming;
Knowledge of who you are, the wish to be
None other; freedom to forget the time;
To know the soul exceeds where it's confined
Yet does not seek the terms of its release,
Like a child's kite catching at the wind
That flies because the hand holds tight the line.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2006 by Joshua
Weiner. Reprinted from "From the Book of Giants,"
University of Chicago Press, 2006, by permission of the
author. Introduction copyright (c) 2006 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 122
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
The chances are very good that you are within a thousand
yards of a man with a comb-over, and he may even be
somewhere in your house. Here's Maine poet, Wesley
McNair, with his commentary on these valorous attempts
to disguise hair loss.
Hymn to the Comb-Over
How the thickest of them erupt just
above the ear, cresting in waves so stiff
no wind can move them. Let us praise them
in all of their varieties, some skinny
as the bands of headphones, some rising
from a part that extends halfway around
the head, others four or five strings
stretched so taut the scalp resembles
a musical instrument. Let us praise the sprays
that hold them, and the combs that coax
such abundance to the front of the head
in the mirror, the combers entirely forget
the back. And let us celebrate the combers,
who address the old sorrow of time's passing
day after day, bringing out of the barrenness
of mid-life this ridiculous and wonderful
harvest, no wishful flag of hope, but, thick,
or thin, the flag itself, unfurled for us all
in subways, offices, and malls across America.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2006 by Wesley
McNair. Reprinted from "The Ghosts of You and Me,"
published by David R. Godine, 2006, by permission of the
author. Introduction copyright (c) 2006 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 121
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
A large white umbrella blown into the street, and an
aproned waiter rushing to the rescue. A poem need not
have a big subject, but what's there does need to add up
to more than the surface details. Notice the way this
poem by Mike White of Utah moves beyond realistic
description into another, deeper realm of suggestion.
Wind
Not a remarkable wind.
So when the bistro's patio umbrella
blew suddenly free and pitched
into the middle of the road,
it put a stop to the afternoon.
Something white and amazing
was blocking the way.
A waiter in a clean apron
appeared, not quite
certain, shielding his eyes, wary
of our rumbling engines.
He knelt in the hot road,
making two figures in white, one
leaning over the sprawled,
broken shape of the other,
creaturely, great-winged,
and now so carefully gathered in.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright © 2006 by Mike White.
Reprinted from "West Branch," No. 58,
Spring/Summer 2006, with permission of the author.
Introduction copyright © 2006 by The Poetry Foundation.
The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 120
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
The loss of youth and innocence is one of the great
themes of literature. Here the California poet Kim
Noriega looks deeply into a photograph from forty years
ago.
Heaven, 1963
It's my favorite photo--
captioned, "Daddy and His Sweetheart."
It's in black and white,
it's before Pabst Blue Ribbon,
before his tongue became a knife
that made my mother bleed,
and before he blackened my eye
the time he thought I meant to end my life.
He's standing in our yard on Porter Road
beneath the old chestnut tree.
He's wearing sunglasses,
a light cotton shirt,
and a dreamy expression.
He's twenty-seven.
I'm two.
My hair, still baby curls,
is being tossed by a gentle breeze.
I'm fast asleep in his arms.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. From "Blue Arc West: An Anthology of
California Poets" (Huntington Beach, CA, Tebot Bach,
2006), 117. Copyright (c) 2006 by Kim Noriega. Reprinted
with permission of the author and Tebot Bach.
Introduction copyright (c) 2006 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 119
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I'm especially attracted to poems that describe places I
might not otherwise visit, in the manner of good travel
writing. I'm a dedicated stay-at-home and much prefer to
read something fascinating about a place than visit it
myself. Here the Hawaii poet, Joseph Stanton, describes
a tree that few of us have seen but all of us have eaten
from.
Banana Trees
They are tall herbs, really, not trees,
though they can shoot up thirty feet
if all goes well for them. Cut in cross
section they look like gigantic onions,
multi-layered mysteries with ghostly hearts.
Their leaves are made to be broken by the wind,
if wind there be, but the crosswise tears
they are built to expect do them no harm.
Around the steady staff of the leafstalk
the broken fronds flap in the breeze
like brief forgotten flags, but these
tattered, green, photosynthetic machines
know how to grasp with their broken fingers
the gold coins of light that give open air
its shine. In hot, dry weather the fingers
fold down to touch on each side--
a kind of prayer to clasp what damp they can
against the too much light.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2006 by Joseph
Stanton. Reprinted from "A Field Guide to the Wildlife
of Suburban O'ahu," Time Being Books, 2006, with
permission of the publisher. Introduction copyright (c)
2006 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 118
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Our species has developed monstrous weapons that can
kill not only all of us but everything else on the
planet, yet when the wind rises we run for cover, as we
have done for as long as we've been on this earth.
Here's hoping we never have the skill or arrogance to
conquer the weather. And weather stories? We tell them
in the same way our ancestors related encounters with
fearsome dragons. This poem by Minnesota poet Warren
Woessner honors the tradition by sharing an experience
with a hurricane.
Alberto
When the wind clipped
the whitecaps, and the flags
came down before they shredded,
we knew it was no nor'easter.
The Blue Nose ferry stayed
on course, west out of Yarmouth,
while 100 miles of fog
on the Bay blew away.
The Captain let us stand
on the starboard bridge
and scan a jagged range.
Shearwaters skimmed the peaks
while storm petrels hunted valleys
that slowly filled with gold.
Alberto blew out in the Atlantic.
We came back to earth
that for days might tip and sway
and cast us back to sea.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 1998 by Warren
Woessner, whose book of poetry, "Clear All the Rest of
the Way" is forthcoming from The Backwaters Press.
Reprinted from "Iris Rising," BkMk Press of UMKC, 1998,
with permission of the author. Introduction copyright
(c) 2006 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited
manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 117
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
The subdivision; it's all around us. Here Nancy Botkin
of Indiana presents a telling picture of life in such a
neighborhood, the parents downstairs in their
stultifying dailiness, the children enjoying their youth
under the eaves before the passing years force them to
join the adults.
Geometry
All the roofs sloped at the same angle.
The distance between the houses was the same.
There were so many feet from each front door
to the curb. My father mowed the lawn
straight up and down and then diagonally.
And then he lined up beer bottles on the kitchen table.
We knew them only in summer when the air
passed through the screens. The neighbor girls
talked to us across the great divide: attic window
to attic window. We started with our names.
Our whispers wobbled along a tightrope,
and below was the rest of our lives.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2006 by Nancy
Botkin. Reprinted from "Poetry East," Spring, 2006, by
permission of the author, whose full-length book of
poems, "Parts That Were Once Whole," is available from
Mayapple Press, 2007. Introduction copyright (c) 2006 by
The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted
Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant
in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We
do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 116
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
It's the oldest kind of story: somebody ventures deep
into the woods and comes back with a tale. Here Roy
Jacobstein returns to America to relate his experience
on a safari to the place believed by archaeologists to
be the original site of human life. And against this
ancient backdrop he closes with a suggestion of the
brevity of our lives.
Safari, Rift Valley
Minutes ago those quick cleft hoofs
lifted the dik-dik's speckled frame.
Now the cheetah dips her delicate head
to the still-pulsating guts. Our Rover's
so close we need no zoom to fix the green
shot of her eyes, the matted red mess
of her face. You come here, recall a father
hale in his ordinary life, not his last bed,
not the long tasteless slide of tapioca.
This is the Great Rift, where it all began,
here where the warthogs amd hartebeest
feed in the scrub, giraffes splay to drink,
and our rank diesel exhaust darkens the air
for only a few moments before vanishing.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2006 by Roy
Jacobstein, whose most recent book is "A Form of
Optimism," University Press of New England, 2006.
Reprinted by permission of the author. Introduction
copyright (c) 2006 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United
States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library
of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept
unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 115
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Each of the senses has a way of evoking time and place.
In this bittersweet poem by Jeffrey Harrison of
Massachusetts, birdsong offers reassurance as the
speaker copes with loss.
Visitation
Walking past the open window, she is surprised
by the song of the white-throated sparrow
and stops to listen. She has been thinking of
the dead ones she loves--her father who lived
over a century, and her oldest son, suddenly gone
at forty-seven--and she can't help thinking
she has called them back, that they are calling her
in the voices of these birds passing through Ohio
on their spring migration. . . because, after years
of summers in upstate New York, the white-throat
has become something like the family bird.
Her father used to stop whatever he was doing
and point out its clear, whistling song. She hears it
again: "Poor Sam Peabody Peabody Peabody."
She tries not to think, "Poor Andy," but she
has already thought it, and now she is weeping.
But then she hears another, so clear, it's as if
the bird were in the room with her, or in her head,
telling her that everything will be all right.
She cannot see them from her second-story window--
they are hidden in the new leaves of the old maple,
or behind the white blossoms of the dogwood--
but she stands and listens, knowing they will stay
for only a few days before moving on.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2006 by Jeffrey
Harrison. Reprinted from "Incomplete Knowledge", Four
Way Books, 2006, with permission of the publisher. All
rights reserved. Introduction copyright (c) 2006 by The
Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted
Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant
in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We
do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 114
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Poetry can be thought of as an act of persuasion: a poem
attempts to bring about some kind of change in its
reader, perhaps no more than a moment of clarity amidst
the disorder of everyday life. And successful poems not
only make use of the meanings and sounds of words, as
well as the images those words conjure up, but may also
take advantage of the arrangement of type on a page.
Notice how this little poem by Mississippi poet Robert
West makes the very best use of the empty space around
it to help convey the nature of its subject.
Echo
A lone
voice
in the
right
empty space
makes
its own
best
company.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by
the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2005 by Robert
West. Reprinted from "Best Company," Blink Chapbooks,
Chapel Hill, NC, 2005, with permission of the author.
Introduction copyright (c) 2006 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser,
served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in
Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 113
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Though the dog chose domestication, cheerfully enjoying
human food and protection, most of the world's species
look upon us with justifiable wariness, for we're among
the most dangerous critters on the planet. Here
Minnesota poet Freya Manfred, while out for a leisurely
swim, comes face to face with a species that will not be
trained to sit or roll over.
Swimming With A Hundred Year Old Snapping Turtle
I spy his head above the waves,
big as a man's fist, black eyes peering at me,
until he dives into darker, deeper water.
Yesterday I saw him a foot from my outstretched hand,
already tilting his great domed shell away.
Ribbons of green moss rippled behind him,
growing along the ridge of his back
and down his long reptilian tail.
He swims in everything he knows,
and what he knows is never forgotten.
Wisely, he fears me as if I were the Plague,
which I am, sick unto death, swimming
to heal myself in his primeval sea.
Reprinted by permission of Freya Manfred, whose most
recent book is "My Only Home," 2003, from Red Dragonfly
Press. Poem copyright (c) 2006 by Freya Manfred. This
weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The
Library of Congress, and the Department of English at
the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does
not accept unsolicited poetry.
American Life in
Poetry: Column 112
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Not only do we have road rage, but it seems we have road
love, too. Here Elizabeth Hobbs of Maine offers us a
two-car courtship. Be careful with whom you choose to
try this little dance.
Slow Dancing on the Highway:
the Trip North
You follow close behind me,
for a thousand miles responsive to my movements.
I signal, you signal back. We will meet at the next
exit.
You blow kisses, which I return.
You mouth "I love you," a message for my rearview
mirror.
We do a slow tango as we change lanes in tandem,
gracefully, as though music were guiding us.
It is tighter than bodies locked in heat,
this caring, this ardent watching.
Poem copyright (c) 2001 by Elizabeth Hobbs, whose most
recent book is "A Craving for the Goatman," Goose River
Press, 2003. Reprinted from "Poems from the Lake," Goose
River Press, 2001, with permission of the publisher.
This weekly column is supported by The Poetry
Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department
of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This
column does not accept unsolicited poetry.
American Life in Poetry:
Column 111
