doctoral candidate in rhetoric and scientific and technical communication
sunday songs
at a certain age
04 years ago
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.
sleep
04 years ago
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.
the crossing
04 years ago
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.
afterwards
04 years ago
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 tentto 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.
the garden buddha
04 years ago
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–alwaysthe 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 nostalgiaand 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.
louisiana line
04 years ago
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.
snip your hair
04 years ago
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.
nest
04 years ago
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.
the raspberry room
04 years ago
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.
subway
04 years ago
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.