tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108886312024-02-07T18:09:35.701-05:00Robin Chapman's Poem a Day BlogRobin Chapman posts a poem, most days, from fellow poets with one of her watercolors.Robin Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03514906783807267997noreply@blogger.comBlogger473125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10888631.post-12212320629536803662019-12-23T12:01:00.002-05:002020-12-27T21:10:08.943-05:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7l1yDMU706RrEzcGgdwDfMFjy3vQeplNeenHn7dBricPprQHsskioMhYzKI8PFTkKnSK9iKOdSlTQCJKy2vlOulRfi6AoT8IrDwDiKhv1MOXkiVo6FkfuSdy-mW_g-2tK-3kw/s1600/A2201796-9FC2-49C5-B8B1-589B6896210F_1_105_c.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="724" data-original-width="480" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7l1yDMU706RrEzcGgdwDfMFjy3vQeplNeenHn7dBricPprQHsskioMhYzKI8PFTkKnSK9iKOdSlTQCJKy2vlOulRfi6AoT8IrDwDiKhv1MOXkiVo6FkfuSdy-mW_g-2tK-3kw/s640/A2201796-9FC2-49C5-B8B1-589B6896210F_1_105_c.jpeg" width="424" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: orange;"><b>American Life in Poetry: Column 770<br />
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE</b></span> </td>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="color: orange;">Alberto Rios</span> <span style="color: white;">is a highly acclaimed American poet who lives and teaches in Arizona. I found this poem of community and peace in <i>Poetry of Presence: An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems</i>, published
by Grayson Books of West Hartford, Connecticut. The most recent book by Alberto Rios is <i>A Small Story about the Sky</i>, Copper Canyon Press.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: 15px;"><b>We Are of a Tribe </b></span></span></h2>
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<span style="color: white;"><span><span style="font-size: 15px;">We plant seeds in the ground<br />
And dreams in the sky,<br />
<br />
Hoping that, someday, the roots of one<br />
Will meet the upstretched limbs of the other.<br />
<br />
It has not happened yet.<br />
We share the sky, all of us, the whole world:<br />
<br />
Together, we are a tribe of eyes that look upward,<br />
Even as we stand on uncertain ground.<br />
<br />
The earth beneath us moves, quiet and wild,<br />
Its boundaries shifting, its muscles wavering.<br />
<br />
The dream of sky is indifferent to all this,<br />
Impervious to borders, fences, reservations.<br />
<br />
The sky is our common home, the place we all live.<br />
There we are in the world together.<br />
<br />
The dream of sky requires no passport.<br />
Blue will not be fenced. Blue will not be a crime.<br />
<br />
Look up. Stay awhile. Let your breathing slow.<br />
Know that you always have a home here.</span></span></span></div><span style="color: white;">
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<span style="color: white;"><span style="font-size: 13px;"><span><b>We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
</b>American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (</span><a data-auth="NotApplicable" href="https://americanlifeinpoetry.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c993b88231f5f84146565840e&id=61a7669b87&e=20a9abb3a3" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank"><span>www.poetryfoundation.org</span></a><span>),
publisher of <i>Poetry</i> magazine. It is also supported by the
Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem
copyright ©2014 by Alberto Rios, "We Are of a Tribe," from <i>Poetry of Presence: An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems,</i> (Grayson
Books, 2017). Poem reprinted by permission of Alberto Rios and the
publisher. Introduction copyright @2019 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.</span></span></span></div>
Robin Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03514906783807267997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10888631.post-22285176356677085722017-11-20T13:56:00.001-05:002017-11-20T13:56:37.058-05:00<br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">American Life in Poetry: Column 661
</span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><b>
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE</b></span><br />
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<tr><td><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: cyan;">The University of Minnesota Press has published a fine collection of bee poems, <em>If Bees are Few.</em> Here's one by one of my favorite poets, <span style="color: orange;">Naomi Shihab Nye</span>, who lives in San Antonio. Her most recent book is <em>Famous</em> from Wings Press.</span></span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><strong>Bees Were Better </strong></span><br />
<br />
In college, people were always breaking up.<br />
We broke up in parking lots,<br />
beside fountains.<br />
Two people broke up<br />
across a table from me<br />
at the library.<br />
I could not sit at that table again<br />
though I did not know them.<br />
I studied bees, who were able<br />
to convey messages through dancing<br />
and could find their ways<br />
home to their hives<br />
even if someone put up a blockade of sheets<br />
and boards and wire.<br />
Bees had radar in their wings and brains<br />
that humans could barely understand.<br />
I wrote a paper proclaiming<br />
their brilliance and superiority<br />
and revised it at a small café<br />
featuring wooden hive-shaped honey-dippers<br />
in silver honeypots<br />
at every table.</span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts. </strong>American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (<a href="https://americanlifeinpoetry.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c993b88231f5f84146565840e&id=dbd266a6ac&e=20a9abb3a3" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">www.poetryfoundation.org</a>), publisher of <em>Poetry</em>
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the
University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2008 by Naomi Shihab
Nye, “Bees Were Better,” from <em>If Bees Are Few: A Hive of Bee Poems</em>,
Ed., James P. Lenfestey, (University of Minnesota Press, 2016). Poem
reprinted by permission of Naomi Shihab Nye and the publisher.
Introduction copyright ©2017 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.</span></span></span></h4>
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Robin Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03514906783807267997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10888631.post-10829632191372276642017-08-07T13:54:00.001-04:002017-08-07T13:54:30.964-04:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">American Life in Poetry: Column 646
</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;">
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE</span><br />
</span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;">Here's a poem celebrating milkweed by<span style="color: orange;"> Bradford Tice</span>, whose most recent book of poetry is <em>What the Night Numbered</em>,
from Trio House Press. Our Monarch butterfly population depends upon
milkweed, and perhaps a few people who read this won't chop down or pull
up or poison one of these generous plants.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: orange;"><strong>Milkweed</strong></span><br />
<br />
I tell myself softly, <em>this is how love begins—</em><br />
the air alive with something inconceivable,<br />
seeds of every imaginable possibility<br />
floating across the wet grasses, under<br />
the thin arms of ferns. It drifts like snow<br />
or old ash, settling on the dust of the roadways<br />
as you and I descend into thickets, flanked<br />
by the fragrance of honeysuckle and white<br />
primrose.<br />
<br />
I recall how my grandmother imagined<br />
these wanderers were living beings,<br />
some tiny phylum yet to be classified as life.<br />
She would say they reminded her of maidens<br />
decked in white dresses, waltzing through air.<br />
Even after I showed her the pods from which<br />
they sprang, blossoming like tiny spiders,<br />
she refused to believe.<br />
<br />
Now, standing beside you in the crowded<br />
autumn haze, I watch them flock, emerge from<br />
brittle stalks, bursting upon the world as<br />
young lovers do—trysting in the tall grasses,<br />
resting fingers lightly in tousled hair.<br />
Listen, and you can hear them whisper<br />
in the rushes, gazing out at us, wondering—<br />
<em>what lives are these?</em><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of <em>Poetry</em>
magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2013 by Bradford Tice,
“Milkweed,” from <em>Rare Earth,</em> (New Rivers Press, 2013). Poem
reprinted by permission of Bradford Tice and the publisher. Introduction
copyright ©2017 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.</span></span></span></div>
Robin Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03514906783807267997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10888631.post-75070387032631685752016-10-31T12:04:00.002-04:002016-10-31T12:04:25.058-04:00<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;">American Life in Poetry: Column 606<br />BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE</span><span style="color: cyan;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: cyan;"><br /><span style="color: orange;">Emilie Buchwald</span> was the co-publisher and founding editor of Milkweed Editions in Minneapolis going on forty years ago, and that press grew up to become one of the finest literary publishers in our country. Today she edits children's books at Gryphon Press, which she also founded. Here's a lovely remembrance from her new book, The Moment's Only Moment, from Nodin Press. </span><br /><br /><span style="color: orange;">My Mother's Music</span><br /><br />In the evenings of my childhood,<br />when I went to bed,<br />music washed into the cove of my room,<br />my door open to a slice of light.<br /><br />I felt a melancholy I couldn't have named,<br />a longing for what I couldn't yet have said<br />or understood but still<br />knew was longing,<br />knew was sadness<br />untouched by time.<br /><br />Sometimes<br />the music was a rippling stream<br />of clear water rushing<br />over a bed of river stones<br />caught in sunlight.<br /><br />And many nights<br />I crept from bed<br />to watch her<br />swaying where she sat<br />overtaken by the tide,<br />her arms rowing the music<br />out of the piano. <br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">We do not accept unsolicited submissions. 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 ©2016 by Emilie Buchwald, “My Mother's Music,” from The Moment's Only Moment, (Nodin Press, 2016). Poem reprinted by permission of Emilie Buchwald and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2016 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.</span></span>Robin Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03514906783807267997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10888631.post-46656128340346028752016-10-24T11:37:00.002-04:002016-10-24T11:37:28.727-04:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">American Life in Poetry: Column 605</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;">BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE</span><br /><br /><span style="color: cyan;">Beginning writers often tell me their real lives aren't interesting enough to write about, but the mere act of shaping a poem lifts its subject matter above the ordinary. Here's <span style="color: orange;">Natasha Trethewey</span>, who served two terms as U. S. Poet Laureate, illustrating just what I've described. It's from her book Domestic Work, from Graywolf Press. Trethewey lives in Georgia. </span><br /><br /><span style="color: orange;">Housekeeping</span><br /><br />We mourn the broken things, chair legs<br />wrenched from their seats, chipped plates,<br />the threadbare clothes. We work the magic<br />of glue, drive the nails, mend the holes.<br />We save what we can, melt small pieces<br />of soap, gather fallen pecans, keep neck bones<br />for soup. Beating rugs against the house,<br />we watch dust, lit like stars, spreading<br />across the yard. Late afternoon, we draw<br />the blinds to cool the rooms, drive the bugs<br />out. My mother irons, singing, lost in reverie.<br />I mark the pages of a mail-order catalog,<br />listen for passing cars. All day we watch<br />for the mail, some news from a distant place. <br /><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We do not accept unsolicited submissions. 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 ©2000 by Natasha Trethewey, “Housekeeping,” from Domestic Work, (Graywolf Press, 2000). Poem reprinted by permission of Natasha Trethewey and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2016 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.</span></span></span>Robin Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03514906783807267997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10888631.post-56834223546442128172016-09-12T14:32:00.002-04:002016-09-12T14:32:10.960-04:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><b>American Life in Poetry: Column 599<br />BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE</b></span><br /><br /><span style="color: cyan;">Here's a poem by <span style="color: orange;">Debra Nystrom</span> about what it feels like to be a schoolgirl in rural America. No loud laughter echoing in the shopping mall for these young women. The poet lives in Virginia and this is from her book, Night Sky Frequencies, from Sheep Meadow Press.</span> <b></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><b><br />Restless After School</b></span><br /><br />Nothing to do but scuff down<br />the graveyard road behind the playground,<br />past the name-stones lined up in rows<br />beneath their guardian pines,<br />on out into the long, low waves of plains<br />that dissolved time. We'd angle off<br />from fence and telephone line, through<br />ribbon-grass that closed behind as though<br />we'd never been, and drift toward the bluff<br />above the river-bend where the junked pickup<br />moored with its load of locust-skeletons.<br />Stretched across the blistered hood, we let<br />our dresses catch the wind while clouds above<br />dimmed their pink to purple, then shadow-blue—<br />So slow, we listened to our own bones grow.<br /><br /><br /></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We do not accept unsolicited submissions. 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 ©2016 by Debra Nystrom, “Restless After School,” Night Sky Frequencies and Selected Poems, (Sheep Meadow Press, 2016). Poem reprinted by permission of Debra Nystrom and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2016 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.</span></span></span>Robin Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03514906783807267997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10888631.post-52700359392019432162016-07-25T13:33:00.002-04:002016-07-25T13:33:36.557-04:00<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;">American Life in Poetry: Column 592<br />BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE</span><span style="color: cyan;"><br /><br />There are dozens of folk tales in which someone is sent on an errand and it gets derailed in one way or another. Here <span style="color: orange;">Alberto Ríos</span>, who lives in Arizona, gives us a fresh one from Sonora, from his book from Copper Canyon Press, A Small Story About the Sky. </span><br /><br /><br /><span style="color: orange;">One Thursday Afternoon: Magdalena, Sonora, 1939</span><br /><br />Baltazár went to the market and came home with a parrot.<br />Thursdays in this town were always just so:<br /><br />What should have been four big potatoes and some white cheese<br />Came home in a cage filled with green feathers and two wings.<br /><br />The mathematics of exchange in this world, the stomach or the heart—<br />Which of these, how much of one for the other,<br /><br />Friday would have to sort out. On a Thursday afternoon<br />The world sang, a full dinner this way coming through the air.<br /> <br /><br /><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />We do not accept unsolicited submissions. 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 ©2015 by Alberto Ríos, “One Thursday Afternoon: Magdalena, Sonora, 1939,” (A Small Story About the Sky, Copper Canyon Press, 2015). Poem reprinted by permission of Alberto Ríos and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2016 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.<br />******************************</span></span></span>Robin Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03514906783807267997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10888631.post-16005451302591060822015-12-14T12:55:00.001-05:002015-12-14T12:55:59.153-05:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;">American Life in Poetry: Column 559<br />BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE</span><br /><span style="color: cyan;"><br />Several years ago, I co-edited an anthology of poems about birds, and I wish I’d had the opportunity to include this one, a delight. <span style="color: orange;">J. Allyn Rosser</span> lives in Ohio. Her most recent book is Mimi’s Trapeze (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014). </span><br /><br /><span style="color: orange;">Pelicans in December </span><br /><br />One can’t help admiring<br />their rickety grace<br /><br />and old-world feathers<br />like seasoned boardwalk planks.<br /><br />They pass in silent pairs,<br />as if a long time ago<br /><br />they had wearied of calling out.<br />The wind tips them, their<br /><br />ungainly, light-brown weight,<br />into a prehistoric wobble,<br /><br />wings’-end fingers stretching<br />from fingerless gloves,<br /><br />necks slightly tucked and stiff,<br />peering forward and down,<br /><br />like old couples arm in arm<br />on icy sidewalks, careful,<br /><br />careful, mildly surprised<br />by how difficult it has become<br /><br />to stay dignified and keep moving<br />even after the yelping gulls have gone;<br /><br />even after the scattered sand,<br />and the quietly lodged complaints.<br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /><span style="color: cyan;"><br />We do not accept unsolicited submissions. 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 ©2014 by J. Allyn Rosser, “Pelicans in November,” from Mimi’s Trapeze, (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014). Poem reprinted by permission of J. Allyn Rosser and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2015 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.<br />******************************</span></span></span>Robin Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03514906783807267997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10888631.post-70524494448528701732015-09-14T14:53:00.001-04:002015-09-14T14:53:47.487-04:00<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;">American Life in Poetry: Column 547<br />BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="color: cyan;">I’ve seen many poems about the atomic bomb drills that schoolchildren were put through during the Cold War, but this one reaches beyond that experience. <span style="color: orange;">John Philip Johnson</span> lives and writes in Nebraska, and has an illustrated book of poems, Stairs Appear in a Hole Outside of Town.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: orange;"><br />There Have Come Soft Rains </span><br /><br />In kindergarten during the Cold War,<br />mid-day late bells jolted us,<br />sending us single file into the hallway,<br />where we sat, pressing our heads<br />between our knees, waiting.<br /><br />During one of the bomb drills,<br />Annette was standing.<br />My mother said I would talk on and on<br />about her, about how pretty she was.<br />I still remember her that day,<br />curly hair and pretty dress,<br />looking perturbed the way<br />little children do.<br />Why Annette? There’s nothing<br />to be upset about—<br />The bombs won’t get us,<br />I’ve seen what’s to come—<br />it is the days, the steady<br />pounding of days, like gentle rain,<br />that will be our undoing.</span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />We do not accept unsolicited submissions. 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 ©2014 by John Philip Johnson, “There Have Come Soft Rains,” from Rattle, (No. 45, Fall 2014). Poem reprinted by permission of John Philip Johnson and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2015 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.</span></span></span>Robin Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03514906783807267997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10888631.post-11731008207984637302015-09-07T12:33:00.001-04:002015-09-07T12:33:45.768-04:00<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;">American Life in Poetry: Column 546<br />BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE</span><br /><br /><span style="color: cyan;">They say that when undergoing cancer treatment, the patient's attitude is all-important. Here <span style="color: orange;">Robert King</span>, a poet now living in Colorado, looks with wit and bemusement at his chemotherapy. His most recent book is Some of These Days, (Conundrum Press, 2013).</span><br /><br /><span style="color: orange;">The Cancer Port </span><br /><br />It's called a port, a harbor, haven, home,<br />a city on the coast of my chest opened<br />for a passage into my heart—which we say<br />is where emotions live—and it's embedded,<br /><br />slipped into a shallow nest of flesh, a bump,<br />a lump under the skin on the right so<br />the narrow street can reach the marketplace<br />of the aorta, receptive to any<br /><br />incoming ship, needle, boat, barge, unloading<br />its spices, crates of dates, barrels of poisons,<br />Etoposide phosphate, amethyst, amaranth,<br />Cisplatin, amphorae of wine and olives.<br /><br />I carry it secretly under my skin<br />because it is easier. I carry<br />everything under my skin, so lightly<br />I barely notice, watching from the ramparts<br /><br />the dangerous rocky anchorage below<br />where goods and evils, bundled together<br />and tied, arrive, waiting to be unloaded<br />and poured out into a welcoming country.</span>Robin Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03514906783807267997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10888631.post-38606385128108920242015-08-31T13:12:00.001-04:002015-08-31T13:12:15.527-04:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;">American Life in Poetry: Column 545<br />BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE</span><br /><br /><span style="color: cyan;">How could we publish a column about American Life in Poetry without including a poem about a high school reunion? This is from <span style="color: orange;">Barbara Crooker</span>’s Selected Poems from Futurecycle Press. She lives in Pennsylvania.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: orange;">25th reunion </span><br /><br />A quarter of a century<br />since we left high school,<br />and we’ve gathered at a posh restaurant.<br />A little heavier, a little grayer,<br />we look for the yearbook pictures<br />caught inside these bodies of strangers.<br />Some of our faces are etched with lines,<br />the faint tracing of a lover’s touch,<br />and some of our hair is silver-white,<br />a breath of frost. And some of us are gone.<br />But he’s here, the dark angel,<br />everyone’s last lover, up at the microphone<br />singing Save the last dance for me;<br />he’s singing a cappella, the notes rising<br />sweetly, yearningly toward the ceiling,<br />which is now festooned with tissue flowers,<br />paper streamers, balloons.<br />And we’re all eighteen again,<br />lines and wrinkles erased, gray hairs gone,<br />our slim bodies back, the perfect editing.<br />A saxophone keens its reedy insistence;<br />scents of gardenias and tea roses float in the air<br />from our wrist corsages and boutonnieres.<br />No children or lovers have broken our hearts,<br />it’s just all of us, together,<br />in our fresh young skin,<br />ready to do it all over again.<br /><br /><br /><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">We do not accept unsolicited submissions. 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 ©2015 by Barbara Crooker, “25th Reunion,” from Selected Poems, (Futurecycle Press, 2015). Poem reprinted by permission of Barbara Crooker and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2015 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.<br />******************************</span></span></span>Robin Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03514906783807267997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10888631.post-73726567291864463252015-06-29T12:42:00.000-04:002015-06-29T12:42:01.449-04:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;">American Life in Poetry: Column 536<br />BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE</span><br /><br /><span style="color: cyan;">I love short poems, and <span style="color: orange;">Wendy Videlock </span>is very good at writing them. This is from her book Slingshots and Love Plums, from Able Muse Press. She lives in Colorado. </span><br /><span style="color: orange;">A Relevance </span><br /><br />One<br />teeny tiny<br />worm<br /><br />making the earth<br />turn.<br /><br /><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">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 ©2015 by Wendy Videlock, “A Relevance,” from her book of poems, Slingshots and Love Plums, (Able Muse Press, 2015). Poem reprinted by permission of Wendy Videlock and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2015 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.<br />******************************</span></span></span>Robin Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03514906783807267997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10888631.post-47984086203096220492015-02-23T11:08:00.000-05:002015-02-23T11:08:06.162-05:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;">American Life in Poetry: Column 518<br />BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE</span><br /><br /><span style="color: cyan;">Several years ago, Judith Kitchen and I published an anthology of poems about birds, and since then I keep finding ones I wished we’d known about at the time. Here’s one by <span style="color: orange;">Barbara Ellen Sorensen</span>, who lives in Colorado. </span><br /><br /><span style="color: orange;">Pelican </span><br /><br />Under warm New Mexico sun,<br />we watched the pelican place<br />himself down among the mallards<br />as if he had been there all along,<br />as if they were expecting the large,<br />cumbersome body, the ungainliness.<br />And he, sensing his own unsightly<br />appearance, tucked his head close<br />to his body and took on the smooth<br />insouciance of a swan.<br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">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 © 2013 by Barbara Ellen Sorensen from her most recent book of poems Compositions of the Dead Playing Flutes, (Able Muse Press, 2013). Poem reprinted by permission of Barbara Ellen Sorensen and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2015 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.<br />******************************</span></span>Robin Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03514906783807267997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10888631.post-2631386543829958022014-12-01T13:51:00.001-05:002014-12-01T13:51:59.084-05:00<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;">American Life in Poetry: Column 506<br />BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE</span><br /><br /><span style="color: cyan;">I flunked college physics, and anything smaller than a BB is too small for me to understand. But here’s <span style="color: orange;">James Crews</span>, whose home is in St. Louis, “relatively” at ease with the smallest things we’ve been told are all around and in us. </span><span style="color: orange;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><br />God Particles </span><br /><br />I could almost hear their soft collisions<br />on the cold air today, but when I came in,<br /><br />shed my layers and stood alone by the fire,<br />I felt them float toward me like spores<br /><br />flung far from their source, having crossed<br />miles of oceans and fields unknown to most<br /><br />just to keep my body fixed to its place<br />on the earth. Call them God if you must,<br /><br />these messengers that bring hard evidence<br />of what I once was and where I have been—<br /><br />filling me with bits of stardust, whaleskin,<br />goosedown from the pillow where Einstein<br /><br />once slept, tucked in his cottage in New Jersey,<br />dreaming of things I know I’ll never see.<br /><br /><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />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 ©2013 by James Crews, whose most recent book of poems is The Book of What Stays, University of Nebraska Press, 2011. Poem reprinted from Ruminate Magazine, Issue 29, Autumn 2013, by permission of James Crews and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2014 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.<br />******************************</span></span></span>Robin Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03514906783807267997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10888631.post-60978116224307323192014-11-24T11:57:00.002-05:002014-11-24T11:57:45.438-05:00<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: cyan;">American Life in Poetry: Column 505<br />BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE</span><br /><br /><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="color: orange;">Stuart Kestenbaum</span> is a Maine poet with a new book, Only Now, from Deerbrook Editions. In it are a number of thoughtful poems posed as prayers, and here’s an example: </span><br /><br /><span style="color: orange;">Prayer for Joy </span><br /><br />What was it we wanted<br />to say anyhow, like today<br />when there were all the letters<br />in my alphabet soup and suddenly<br />the ‘j’ rises to the surface.<br />The ‘j’, a letter that might be<br />great for Scrabble, but not really<br />used for much else, unless<br />we need to jump for joy,<br />and then all of a sudden<br />it’s there and ready to<br />help us soar and to open up<br />our hearts at the same time,<br />this simple line with a curved bottom,<br />an upside down cane that helps<br />us walk in a new way into this<br />forest of language, where all the letters<br />are beginning to speak,<br />finding each other in just<br />the right combination<br />to be understood.<br /><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />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 ©2014 by Stuart Kestenbaum, “Prayer for Joy” from Only Now, (Deerbrook Editions, 2014). Poem reprinted by permission of Stuart Kestenbaum and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2014 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.<br />******************************</span></span></span>Robin Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03514906783807267997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10888631.post-21451745927090739982014-11-02T14:53:00.000-05:002014-11-02T14:53:00.261-05:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;">American Life in Poetry: Column 493<br />BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="color: cyan;">Stories read to us as children can stay with us all our lives. Robert McCloskey’s Lentil was especially influential for me, and other books have helped to shape you. Here’s <span style="color: orange;">Matt Mason</span>, who lives in Omaha, with a book that many of you will remember.</span><br /><span style="color: orange;"><br />The Story of Ferdinand the Bull </span><br /><br />Dad would come home after too long at work<br />and I’d sit on his lap to hear<br />the story of Ferdinand the Bull; every night,<br />me handing him the red book until I knew<br />every word, couldn’t read,<br />just recite along with drawings<br />of a gentle bull, frustrated matadors,<br />the all-important bee, and flowers—<br />flowers in meadows and flowers<br />thrown by the Spanish ladies.<br />Its lesson, really,<br />about not being what you’re born into<br />but what you’re born to be,<br />even if that means<br />not caring about the capes they wave in your face<br />or the spears they cut into your shoulders.<br />And Dad, wonderful Dad, came home<br />after too long at work<br />and read to me<br />the same story every night<br />until I knew every word, couldn’t read,<br /> just recite.<br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">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 ©2013 by Matt Mason from his most recent book of poems, The Baby That Ate Cincinnati, Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2013. Poem reprinted by permission of Matt Mason and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2014 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.<br />******************************</span></span></span>Robin Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03514906783807267997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10888631.post-31479652488892598542014-10-13T13:05:00.002-04:002014-10-13T13:05:41.542-04:00<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;"><b>American Life in Poetry: Column 499<br />BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE</b></span><br /><br /><span style="color: cyan;">To celebrate my 75th year, I’ve published a new book of poems, and many of them are about the way in which we come together to help each other through the world. Here’s just one: </span><br /><span style="color: orange;"><b>Two </b></span><br /><br />On a parking lot staircase<br />I met two fine-looking men<br />descending, both in slacks<br />and dress shirts, neckties<br />much alike, one of the men<br />in his sixties, the other<br />a good twenty years older,<br />unsteady on his polished shoes,<br />a son and his father, I knew<br />from their looks, the son with his<br />right hand on the handrail,<br />the father, left hand on the left,<br />and in the middle they were<br />holding hands, and when I neared,<br />they opened the simple gate<br />of their interwoven fingers<br />to let me pass, then reached out<br />for each other and continued on.<br /></span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">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 Ted Kooser from his most recent book of poems, Splitting an Order, Copper Canyon Press, 2014. Poem reprinted by permission of Ted Kooser and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2014 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.</span></span></span><br />
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Robin Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03514906783807267997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10888631.post-6793158821332310422014-07-28T13:15:00.001-04:002014-07-28T13:15:46.112-04:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;">American Life in Poetry: Column 488<br />BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE</span><br /><br /><span style="color: cyan;">Here’s a poem by an Indiana poet, <span style="color: orange;">Shari Wagner</span>, that has a delightful time describing the many sounds of running water. </span><br /><br /><span style="color: orange;">Creek-Song </span><br /><br />It begins in a cow lane<br />with bees and white clover,<br />courses along corn, rushes<br />accelerando against rocks.<br />It rises to a teetering pitch<br />as I cross a shaky tree-bridge,<br />syncopates a riff<br />over the dissonance<br />of trash—derelict icebox<br />with a missing door,<br />mohair loveseat sinking<br />into thistle. It winds through green<br />adder’s mouth, faint as the bells<br />of Holsteins heading home.<br />Blue shadows lengthen,<br />but the undertow<br />of a harmony pulls me on<br />through raspy Joe-pye-weed<br />and staccato-barbed fence.<br />It hums in a culvert<br />beneath cars, then empties<br />into a river that flows oboe-deep<br />past Indian dance ground, waterwheel<br />and town, past the bleached<br />stones in the churchyard,<br />the darkening hill.<br /><span style="color: cyan;"><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">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 The Christian Century. Shari Wagner’s most recent book of poetry is The Harmonist at Nightfall, Bottom Dog Press, 2013. Poem reprinted by permission of The Christian Century and the poet. Introduction copyright © 2014 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.</span></span></span>Robin Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03514906783807267997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10888631.post-53878077897787139712014-07-22T15:22:00.001-04:002014-07-22T15:22:47.293-04:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;">American Life in Poetry: Column 487<br />BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE</span><br /><span style="color: cyan;"><br />Who hasn’t wished he or she could talk to a carnival worker and find out what their lives are like? Everybody, perhaps, but the carnival workers. Here’s a poem by <span style="color: orange;">Mark Kraushaar </span>of Wisconsin that captures one of those lives. </span><br /><br /><span style="color: orange;">The Ring Toss Lady Breaks a Five </span><br /><br />It’s all of it rigged, she says,<br />Bust-one-wins, Hi-striker, even the Dozer.<br />It’s like you think you’ll score that giant panda<br />for the wife except you can’t, or not<br />without you drop another twenty<br />and then—what?—then you win<br />a thumb-sized monkey or a little comb.<br />She hands me five ones and then stands.<br />She’s worked the whole of the midway,<br />she says, funnel cake to corn-dogs.<br />She’s worked every game<br />plus half the rides, Krazy Koaster,<br />Avalanche, Wing-Ding, Tilt-a-Whirl<br />and if there’s somebody sick she’ll do<br />a kiddy ride too, Li’l Choo-choo, maybe<br />the Tea Cup.<br />There’s a collapsing soft sigh<br />and she sits, opens the paper, turns a page<br />and as if she were the one assigned to face forwards,<br />as if it were her job to intuit the world<br />and interpret the news,<br />Anymore, she says, it’s out of our hands,<br />it’s all we can do—it’s not up to you.<br />You see that bald bronco tearing<br />tickets at the carousel?<br />We worked the Bottle-drop<br />and now he’s mine: he’s no genius<br />but he loves me and he’s mine.<br />Things happen, she says, you<br />can’t take them back.<br /><br /><br /><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">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 ©2013 by the Alaska Quarterly Review. Mark Kraushaar’s most recent book of poems is The Uncertainty Principle, Waywiser Press, 2012. Poem reprinted from the Alaska Quarterly Review, Vol. 30, No. 1 & 2, by permission of the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2014 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.<br />******************************</span></span></span>Robin Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03514906783807267997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10888631.post-40418057395453605742014-07-07T23:04:00.001-04:002014-07-07T23:04:20.530-04:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;">American Life in Poetry: Column 485<br />BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE</span><br /><span style="color: cyan;"><br />No ideas but in things, said one of my favorite poets, William Carlos Williams, and here’s a fine poem by <span style="color: orange;">Maryann Corbett</span> of St. Paul, Minnesota, about turning up one small object loaded with meaning.</span> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="color: orange;">Finding the Lego </span><br /><br />You find it when you’re tearing up your life,<br />trying to make some sense of the old messes,<br />moving dressers, peering under beds.<br />Almost lost in cat hair and in cobwebs,<br />in dust you vaguely know was once your skin,<br />it shows up, isolated, fragmentary.<br />A tidy little solid. Tractable.<br />Knobbed to be fitted in a lock-step pattern<br />with others. Plastic: red or blue or yellow.<br />Out of the dark, undamaged, there it is,<br />as bright and primary colored and foursquare<br />as the family with two parents and two children<br />who moved in twenty years ago in a dream.<br />It makes no allowances, concedes no failures,<br />admits no knowledge of a little girl<br />who glared through tears, rubbing her slapped cheek.<br />Rigidity is its essential trait.<br />Likely as not, you leave it where it was.<br /><br /><br /><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">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 ©2013 by Maryann Corbett, from her most recent book of poems, Credo for the Checkout Line in Winter, Able Muse Press, 2013. Poem reprinted by permission of Maryann Corbett and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2014 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.<br />******************************</span></span></span><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span><br />Robin Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03514906783807267997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10888631.post-1310143971485883702014-05-26T22:25:00.002-04:002014-05-26T22:25:39.603-04:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;">American Life in Poetry: Column 478<br />BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE</span><br /><br /><span style="color: orange;">Peter Everwine</span> <span style="color: cyan;">is a poet whose work I have admired for many years. Here is a poem about an experience many of us have shared. <span style="color: orange;">Everwine</span> lives in California, but what happens in this poem happens every day in every corner of the world. </span> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;">After the Funeral </span><br /><br />We opened closets and bureau drawers<br />and packed away, in boxes, dresses and shoes,<br />the silk underthings still wrapped in tissue.<br />We sorted through cedar chests. We gathered<br />and set aside the keepsakes and the good silver<br />and brought up from the coal cellar<br />jars of tomato sauce, peppers, jellied fruit.<br />We dismantled, we took down from the walls,<br />we bundled and carted off and swept clean.<br />Goodbye, goodbye, we said, closing<br />the door behind us, going our separate ways<br />from the house we had emptied,<br />and which, in the coming days, we would fill<br />again and empty and try to fill again.<br /><br /><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">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 © 2013 by Peter Everwine, from Listening Long and Late (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2013). Poem reprinted by permission of Peter Everwine and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2014 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.</span></span></span>Robin Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03514906783807267997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10888631.post-8713873358368077222014-05-11T11:53:00.000-04:002014-05-11T11:53:04.231-04:00<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;">American Life in Poetry: Column 476<br /><br />BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE</span><br /><br /><span style="color: cyan;">Parents and children. Sometimes it seems that’s all there is to life. In this poem <span style="color: orange;">Donna Spector</span>, from New York state, gives us a ride that many of us may have taken, hanging on for dear life. </span><br /><br /><span style="color: orange;">On the Way to the Airport </span><br /><br />You’re speeding me down the Ventura freeway<br />in your battered Scout, patched since your angry<br />crash into the drunken pole that swerved into your road.<br />We’ve got no seat belts, no top, bald tires,<br />so I clutch any metal that seems as though it might<br />be firm, belie its rusted rattling. Under my<br />August burn I’m fainting white, but I’m trying<br />to give you what you want: an easy mother.<br /><br />For the last two days you’ve been plugged<br />into your guitar, earphones on, door closed. I spoiled<br />our holiday with warnings about your accidental<br />life, said this time I wouldn’t rescue you, knowing<br />you’d hate me, knowing I’d make myself sick. We’re<br />speaking now, the airport is so near, New York closer<br />than my birthday tomorrow, close as bearded death<br />whose Porsche just cut us off in the fast lane.<br /><br />When you were three, you asked if God lived<br />under the street. I said I didn’t know, although<br />a world opened under my feet walking with you<br />over strange angels, busy arranging our fate. Soon,<br />if we make it, I’ll be in the air, where people say God lives,<br />the line between you and me stretched thinner,<br />thinner but tight enough still to bind us,<br />choke us both with love. Your Scout, putty-colored<br />as L.A. mornings, protests loudly but hangs on.<br /><br /><br /><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">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 © 2013 by Donna Spector, whose most recent book of poems is The Woman Who Married Herself, Evening Street Press, 2010. Poem reprinted from Rattle, Vol. 19, no. 3, by permission of Donna Spector and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2014 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.<br /><br />******************************</span></span></span>Robin Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03514906783807267997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10888631.post-24206817769644266632014-04-14T12:47:00.001-04:002014-04-14T12:47:34.790-04:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;">American Life in Poetry: Column 473<br />BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE</span><br /><br /><span style="color: cyan;">I was born in April and have never agreed with T.S. Eliot that it is “the cruellest month.” Why would I want to have been born from that? Here’s <span style="color: orange;">Robert Hedin</span>, who lives in Minnesota, showing us what April can be like once Eliot is swept aside. </span><br /><br /><span style="color: orange;">This Morning I Could Do<br />A Thousand Things </span><br /><br />I could fix the leaky pipe<br />Under the sink, or wander over<br />And bother Jerry who’s lost<br />In the bog of his crankcase.<br />I could drive the half-mile down<br />To the local mall and browse<br />Through the bright stables<br />Of mowers, or maybe catch<br />The power-walkers puffing away<br />On their last laps. I could clean<br />The garage, weed the garden,<br />Or get out the shears and<br />Prune the rose bushes back.<br />Yes, a thousand things<br />This beautiful April morning.<br />But I’ve decided to just lie<br />Here in this old hammock,<br />Rocking like a lazy metronome,<br />And wait for the day lilies<br />To open. The sun is barely<br />Over the trees, and already<br />The sprinklers are out,<br />Raining their immaculate<br />Bands of light over the lawns.<br /><br /><span style="color: cyan;"><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">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 © 2013 by Robert Hedin from his most recent book of poems, Poems Prose Poems, Red Dragonfly Press, 2013. Poem reprinted by permission of Robert Hedin and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2014 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.<br />******************************</span></span></span><br /><br />Robin Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03514906783807267997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10888631.post-73039665873886762102014-03-31T18:17:00.000-04:002014-03-31T18:17:06.410-04:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;">American Life in Poetry: Column 471<br /><br />BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE</span><br /><br /><span style="color: cyan;">Despite having once been bitten by a rabid bat, and survived, much to the disappointment of my critics, I find bats fascinating, and <span style="color: orange;">Peggy Shumaker</span> of Alaska has written a fine poem about them. I am especially fond of her perfect verb, “snick,” for the way they snatch insects out of the air. </span><br /><br /><br /><span style="color: orange;">Spirit of the Bat </span><br /><br />Hair rush, low swoop—<br />so those of us<br /><br />stuck here on earth<br />know—you must be gods.<br /><br />Or friends of gods,<br />granted chances<br /><br />to push off into sky,<br />granted chances<br /><br />to hear so well<br />your own voice bounced<br /><br />back to you<br />maps the night.<br /><br />Each hinge<br />in your wing’s<br /><br />an act of creation.<br />Each insect<br /><br />you snick out of air<br />a witness.<br /><br />You transform<br />obstacles<br /><br />into sounds,<br />then dodge them.<br /><br /><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">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 © 2013 by Peggy Shumaker from her most recent book of poems, Toucan Nest: Poems of Costa Rica, Red Hen Press, 2013. Poem reprinted by permission of Peggy Shumaker and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2014 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.<br /><br />******************************</span></span></span>Robin Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03514906783807267997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10888631.post-10142595030290604302014-03-24T15:35:00.000-04:002014-03-24T15:35:05.769-04:00<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;">American Life in Poetry: Column 470<br /><br />BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE </span><br /><br /><span style="color: cyan;">Considering that I’m a dog lover, I haven’t included nearly enough dog poems in this column. My own dog, Howard, now in his dotage, has never learned a trick of any kind, nor learned to behave, so I admire <span style="color: orange;">Karla Huston</span> for having the patience to teach her dog something. Huston lives in Wisconsin. </span><br /><br /><span style="color: orange;">Sway </span><br /><br />The cruelest thing I did to my dog<br />wasn’t to ignore his barking for water<br />when his tongue hung like a deflated balloon<br /><br />or to disregard his chronic need for a belly rub<br />but to teach him to shake hands,<br />a trick that took weeks of treats, his dark eyes<br /><br />like Greek olives, moist with desire.<br />I made him sit, another injustice,<br />and allowed him to want the nuggets enough<br /><br />to please me. Shake, I said. Shake?<br />touching the back of his right leg<br />until he lifted it, his saliva trickling<br /><br />from soft jowls, my hand wet with his hunger.<br />Mistress of the biscuit, I ruffled his ears<br />and said good dog until he got it. Before long,<br /><br />he raised his paw, shook me until he got<br />the treat, the rub, the water in a chilled silver bowl,<br />the wilderness in him gone, his eyes still lit with longing.<br /><br /><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">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 ©2013 by Karla Huston from her most recent book of poems, A Theory of Lipstick, Main Street Rag Publishing Co., 2013. Poem reprinted by permission of Karla Huston and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2014 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.</span></span></span><br />Robin Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03514906783807267997noreply@blogger.com