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. 

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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. 

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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. 

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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.