Getagged: American Life in Poetry
73. American Life in Poetry: Column 420
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE
There’s something wonderful about happening upon a musician playing for his or her own pleasure, completely absorbed in the music. Jeff Daniel Marion is a fine poet from east Tennessee. And here’s a woman playing the bagpipes.
Playing to the River
She stands by the riverbank,
notes from her bagpipes lapping
across to us as we wait
for the traffic light to change.
She does not know we hear—
she is playing to the river,
a song for the water, the flow
of an unknown melody to the rocky
bluffs beyond, for the mist
that was this morning, shroud
of past lives: fishermen
and riverboat gamblers, tugboat captains
and log raftsmen, pioneer and native
slipping through the eddies of time.
She plays for them all, both dirge
and surging hymn, for what has passed
and is passing as we slip
into the currents of traffic,
the changed light bearing us 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 ©2012 by Jeff Daniel Marion, whose most recent book of poems is Father, Wind Publications, 2009. First appeared in Still: The Journal, an online publication, Winter 2013. Poem reprinted by permission of Jeff Daniel Marion.
Introduction copyright © 2013 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.
6. American Life in Poetry: Column 419
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE
It pains an old booklover like me to think of somebody burning a book, but if you’ve gotten one for a quarter and it’s falling apart, well, maybe it’s OK as long as you might be planning to pick up a better copy. Here Ron Koertge, who lives in Pasadena, has some fun with the ashes of love poems.
Burning the Book
The anthology of love poems I bought
for a quarter is brittle, anyway, and comes
apart when I read it.
One at a time, I throw pages on the fire
and watch smoke make its way up
and out.
I’m almost to the index when I hear
a murmuring in the street. My neighbors
are watching it snow.
I put on my blue jacket and join them.
The children stand with their mouths
open.
I can see nouns—longing, rapture, bliss—
land on every tongue, then disappear.
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 ©2012 by Ron Koertge, whose most recent book of poems is Fever, Red Hen Press, 2006. Poem reprinted by permission of Ron Koertge. Introduction copyright © 2013 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.
92. American Life in Poetry: Column 418
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE
Robert Morgan, who lives in Ithaca, New York, has long been one of my favorite American poets. He’s also a fine novelist and, recently, the biographer of Daniel Boone. His poems are often about customs and folklore, and this one is a good example.
Living Tree
It’s said they planted trees by graves
to soak up spirits of the dead
through roots into the growing wood.
The favorite in the burial yards
I knew was common juniper.
One could do worse than pass into
such a species. I like to think
that when I’m gone the chemicals
and yes the spirit that was me
might be searched out by subtle roots
and raised with sap through capillaries
into an upright, fragrant trunk,
and aromatic twigs and bark,
through needles bright as hoarfrost to
the sunlight for a century
or more, in wood repelling rot
and standing tall with monuments
and statues there on the far hill,
erect as truth, a testimony,
in ground that’s dignified by loss,
around a melancholy tree
that’s pointing toward infinity.
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 ©2012 by Robert Morgan, whose most recent book of poems is Terroir, Penguin Poets, 2011. Poem reprinted from The Georgia Review, Spring 2012, by permission of Robert Morgan and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2013 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.
77. American Life in Poetry: Column 417
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE
There’s an old country-western song with the refrain, “That’s what happens when two worlds collide,” and in this poem by Bruce Guernsey, who divides his year between Illinois and Maine, we see a near collision between two worlds.
Back Road
Winter mornings
driving past
I’d see these kids
huddled like grouse
in the plowed ruts
in front of their shack
waiting for the bus,
three small children
bunched against the drifts
rising behind them.
This morning
I slowed to wave
and the smallest,
a stick of a kid
draped in a coat,
grinned and raised
his red, raw hand,
the snowball
packed with rock
aimed at my face.
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 ©2012 by Bruce Guernsey from his most recent book of poems, From Rain: Poems, 1970-2010, Ecco Qua Press, 2012. Poem reprinted by permission of Bruce Guernsey and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2013 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.
63. American Life in Poetry: Column 416
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE
This kite-flying poem caught me right up and sent me flying as soon as Robert Gibb described those dimestore kites furled tighter than umbrellas, a perfect image. Gibb lives in Pennsylvania.
Kites
Come March we’d find them
In the five-and-dimes,
Furled tighter than umbrellas
About their slats, the air
In an undertow above us
Like weather on the maps.
We’d play out lines
Of kite string, tugging against
The bucking sideways flights.
Readied for assembly,
I’d arc the tensed keel of balsa
Into place against the crosspiece,
Feeling the paper snap
Tautly as a sheet, then lift
The almost weightless body
Up to where it hauled me
Trolling into the winds—
Knotted bows like vertebrae
Flashing among fields
Of light. Why ruin it
By recalling the aftermaths?
Kites gone down in tatters,
Kites fraying like flotsam
From the tops of the trees.
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 ©2012 by Robert Gibb from his most recent book of poems, Sheet Music, Autumn House Press, 2012. Poem reprinted by permission of Robert Gibb and Autumn House Press. Introduction copyright © 2013 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.
39. American Life in Poetry: Column 415
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE
I’ve recently published a children’s book about a man who is so fussy about his yard that he loses his home, so I was immediately taken by this fine poem by Lynne Sharon Schwartz about a similar man. We all enjoy writing that confirms what we’ve privately observed about the world. Schwartz lives in New York City.
Cement Backyard
My father had our yard cemented over.
He couldn’t tell a flower from a weed.
The neighbors let their backyards run to clover
and some grew dappled gardens from a seed,
but he preferred cement to rampant green.
Lushness reeked of anarchy’s profusion.
Better to tamp the wildness down, unseen,
than tolerate its careless brash intrusion.
The grass interred, he felt well satisfied:
his first house, and he took an owner’s pride,
surveying the uniform, cemented yard.
Just so, he labored to cement his heart.
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 ©2012 by Lynne Sharon Schwartz from her most recent book of poems, See You in the Dark, Curbstone/Northwestern University Press, 2012. Reprinted with permission from Curbstone/Northwestern University Press. Introduction copyright © 2013 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.
124. American Life in Poetry: Column 414
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE
When spring finally arrives, it can be fun to see what winter left behind, and Jeffrey Harrison of Massachusetts is doing just that in this amusing poem.
Mailboxes in Late Winter
It’s a motley lot. A few still stand
at attention like sentries at the ends
of their driveways, but more lean
askance as if they’d just received a blow
to the head, and in fact they’ve received
many, all winter, from jets of wet snow
shooting off the curved, tapered blade
of the plow. Some look wobbly, cocked
at oddball angles or slumping forlornly
on precariously listing posts. One box
bows steeply forward, as if in disgrace, its door
lolling sideways, unhinged. Others are dented,
battered, streaked with rust, bandaged in duct tape,
crisscrossed with clothesline or bungee cords.
A few lie abashed in remnants of the very snow
that knocked them from their perches.
Another is wedged in the crook of a tree
like a birdhouse, its post shattered nearby.
I almost feel sorry for them, worn out
by the long winter, off-kilter, not knowing
what hit them, trying to hold themselves
together, as they wait for news from spring.
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 ©2012 by Jeffrey Harrison, whose most recent book of poems is Incomplete Knowledge, Four Way Books, 2006. Poem reprinted from Southwest Review, Vol. 97, no. 1, 2012, by permission of Jeffrey Harrison and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2013 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.
114. American Life in Poetry: Column 413
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE
Every day, hundreds of thousands of us are preoccupied with keeping up a civil if not loving relationship with our parents. In this poem, Mark Irwin (who lives in Colorado) does a beautiful job in portraying, in a dreamlike manner, the complexities of just one of those relationships.
Portraits
Mother came to visit today. We
hadn’t seen each other in years. Why didn’t
you call? I asked. Your windows are filthy, she said. I know,
I know. It’s from the dust and rain. She stood outside.
I stood in, and we cleaned each one that way, staring into each other’s eyes,
rubbing the white towel over our faces, rubbing
away hours, years. This is what it was like
when you were inside me, she said. What? I asked,
though I understood. Afterwards, indoors, she smelled like snow
melting. Holding hands we stood by the picture window,
gazing into the December sun, watching the pines in 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 ©2010 by Mark Irwin from his most recent book of poems, Large White House Speaking, New Issues, 2013 and reprinted by permission of Mark Irwin and the publisher. Poem first printed in The Sun, July 2010. Introduction copyright © 2013 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.
103. American Life in Poetry: Column 412
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE
Mark Sanders, who lives in Texas, is not only a good poet, but he’s an old friend to the poetry of my home ground, working hard as teacher, editor, and publisher to bring Great Plains poetry to the attention of readers across the country. Here’s an example of one of his poems.
The Cranes, Texas January
I call my wife outdoors to have her listen,
to turn her ears upward, beyond the cloud-veiled
sky where the moon dances thin light,
to tell her, “Don’t hear the cars on the freeway—
it’s not the truck-rumble. It is and is not
the sirens.” She stands there, on deck
a rocking boat, wanting to please the captain
who would have her hear the inaudible.
Her eyes, so blue the day sky is envious,
fix blackly on me, her mouth poised on question
like a stone. But, she hears, after all.
…………………………………………… January on the Gulf,
warm wind washing over us,
we stand chilled in the winter of those voices.
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 ©2011 by Mark Sanders from his most recent book of poems, Conditions of Grace: New and Selected Poems, Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2011. Poem reprinted by permission of Mark Sanders and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2013 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.
98. Poetry Foundation Celebrates National Poetry Month
Free issues of Poetry, new educational resources, Record-a-Poem, and more
CHICAGO —The Poetry Foundation is pleased to announce an exciting array of literary programs and poetry events across the country in celebration of National Poetry Month, April 2013.
Poetry
Fifty thousand free copies of Poetry’s April 2013 issue will be distributed to individuals, classrooms, and reading groups around the world in celebration of National Poetry Month. In the April issue, readers find new poetry from Eavan Boland, Jane Hirshfield, Jamaal May, Dean Young, as well as poems by Adam Kirsch inspired by accompanying photographs. In a commemorative installment of “A Few More Don’ts”—one hundred years after Ezra Pound’s original “A Few Don’ts by an Imagiste” appeared in Poetry’s March 1913 issue—William Logan, Marjorie Perloff, and Sina Queyras offer their own guidelines for poets. Readers can find the entire April issue of Poetry online as of April 1, along with the accompanying discussion guide and the magazine podcast. A downloadable PDF of the April issue is also available, perfect for laptops, tablets, or e-readers.
Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute
The Poetry Foundation’s Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute has partnered with McSweeney’s to publish two new titles for readers, writers, teachers, and travelers. In an effort to bring the joy of poetry to students, Open the Door: How to Excite Young People About Poetry, edited by Dorothea Lasky, Dominic Luxford, and Jesse Nathan, offers essays, interviews, and lesson plans. The Strangest of Theatres: Poets Writing Across Borders, edited by Jared Hawkley, Susan Rich, and Brian Turner, explores how poets can serve as international envoys and revitalize American poetry in the process. These books will be released on April 9, 2013, and are currently available on the Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute website, along with a range of free educational resources.
Record-a-Poem
Anyone can record and share their favorite poems through the Poetry Foundation’s Record-a-Poem project. Participants choose poems from the more than 10,000 available through the Poetry Foundation, then record and post them to the Record-a-Poem group on Soundcloud. Learn more about the project.
