December 31, 2008
A Small Moment
American Life in Poetry: Column 197
By Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate, 2004-2006
I suspect that one thing some people have against reading poems is that they are so often so serious, so devoid of joy, as if we poets spend all our time brooding about mutability and death and never having any fun. Here Cornelius Eady, who lives and teaches in Indiana, offers us a poem of pure pleasure.
A Small Moment
I walk into the bakery next door
To my apartment. They are about
To pull some sort of toast with cheese
From the oven. When I ask:
What's that smell? I am being
A poet, I am asking
What everyone else in the shop
Wanted to ask, but somehow couldn't;
I am speaking on behalf of two other
Customers who wanted to buy the
Name of it. I ask the woman
Behind the counter for a percentage
Of her sale. Am I flirting?
Am I happy because the days
Are longer? Here's what
She does: She takes her time
Choosing the slices. "I am picking
Out the good ones," she tells me. It's
April 14th. Spring, with five to ten
Degrees to go. Some days, I feel my duty;
Some days, I love my work.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 1997 by Cornelius Eady, from his most recent book of poetry, "Hardheaded Weather: New and Selected Poems," A Marian Wood Book, Putnam, 2008. Reprinted by permission of Cornelius Eady. Introduction copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
Posted by Bill Trippe at 2:00 PM
December 25, 2008
Under the Christmas Tree
Posted by Bill Trippe at 10:25 PM
December 23, 2008
Gloves
American Life in Poetry: Column 196
By Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate, 2004-2006
One of the most effective means for conveying strong emotion is to invest some real object with one's feelings, and then to let the object carry those feelings to the reader. Notice how the gloves in this short poem by Jose Angel Araguz of Oregon carry the heavy weight of the speaker's loss.
Gloves
I made up a story for myself once,
That each glove I lost
Was sent to my father in prison
That's all it would take for him
To chart my growth without pictures
Without words or visits,
Only colors and design,
Texture; it was ok then
For skin to chafe and ash,
To imagine him
Trying on a glove,
Stretching it out
My open palm closing
And disappearing
In his fist.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007 by Jose Angel Araguz. Poem reprinted from "Rattle," Vol. 13, no. 2, Winter 2007, by permission of Jose Angel Araguz. Introduction copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
******************************
American Life in Poetry provides newspapers and online publications with a free weekly column featuring contemporary American poems. The sole mission of this project is to promote poetry: American Life in Poetry seeks to create a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture. There are no costs for reprinting the columns; we do require that you register your publication here and that the text of the column be reproduced without alteration.
Posted by Bill Trippe at 12:46 PM
December 20, 2008
Blogs and Kindle
I just got my royalty report from Newstex, and was pleased to see a little revenue from Kindle sales. If you're reading this on a Kindle, you just made me .00023 richer!
Posted by Bill Trippe at 11:11 AM
December 19, 2008
Christmas Night
American Life in Poetry: Column 195
By Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate, 2004-2006
Here is a poem, much like a prayer, in which the Michigan poet Conrad Hilberry asks for no more than a little flare of light, an affirmation, at the end of a long, cold Christmas day.
Christmas Night
Let midnight gather up the wind
and the cry of tires on bitter snow.
Let midnight call the cold dogs home,
sleet in their fur--last one can blow
the streetlights out. If children sleep
after the day's unfoldings, the wheel
of gifts and griefs, may their breathing
ease the strange hollowness we feel.
Let midnight draw whoever's left
to the grate where a burnt-out log unrolls
low mutterings of smoke until
a small fire wakes in its crib of coals.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2008 by Conrad Hilberry, whose most recent book of poetry is After Music (Made in Michigan Writers)
******************************
American Life in Poetry provides newspapers and online publications with a free weekly column featuring contemporary American poems. The sole mission of this project is to promote poetry: American Life in Poetry seeks to create a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture. There are no costs for reprinting the columns; we do require that you register your publication here and that the text of the column be reproduced without alteration.
Posted by Bill Trippe at 8:40 PM
December 11, 2008
Applied Geometry
American Life in Poetry: Column 194
By Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate, 2004-2006
Father and child doing a little math homework together; it's an everyday occurrence, but here, Russell Libby, a poet who writes from Three Sisters Farm in central Maine, presents it in a way that makes it feel deep and magical.
Applied Geometry
Applied geometry,
measuring the height
of a pine from
like triangles,
Rosa's shadow stretches
seven paces in
low-slanting light of
late Christmas afternoon.
One hundred thirty nine steps
up the hill until the sun is
finally caught at the top of the tree,
let's see,
twenty to one,
one hundred feet plus a few to adjust
for climbing uphill,
and her hands barely reach mine
as we encircle the trunk,
almost eleven feet around.
Back to the lumber tables.
That one tree might make
three thousand feet of boards
if our hearts could stand
the sound of its fall.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007 by Russell Libby, whose most recent book is Balance - A Late Pastoral
******************************
American Life in Poetry provides newspapers and online publications with a free weekly column featuring contemporary American poems. The sole mission of this project is to promote poetry: American Life in Poetry seeks to create a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture. There are no costs for reprinting the columns; we do require that you register your publication here and that the text of the column be reproduced without alteration.
Posted by Bill Trippe at 12:33 PM
December 9, 2008
Now Twittering
Here.
Posted by Bill Trippe at 8:32 PM
December 8, 2008
Sad Day at a Magnificent Place
So I left work here Friday, surprised to see a phalanx of TV trucks outside. I'm the opposite of a rubbernecker at such times--I just kept walking. But reading the paper Saturday morning I learned out why there were here--an astonishing 70-foot long crack had developed in the church's most prominent wall, the result of the heavy work being done to make the Copley Square T station handicapped accessible. You can read a good story in the Globe here, and the church's website has a nice letter from the senior minister with additional links here.
Posted by Bill Trippe at 12:10 PM
December 6, 2008
Those Celtics
They are on another amazing roll lately, after starting the season just a little bit slowly. Their defense is just overwhelming. Last night they held the offensively talented Blazers to 15 points in both the second and third quarters, though the subs then gave some of that lead back in the fourth quarter, leading the intense Kevin Garnett to chastise them.
Posted by Bill Trippe at 12:05 PM
December 5, 2008
How Is It That the Snow
American Life in Poetry: Column 193
By Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate, 2004-2006
The first two lines of this poem pose a question many of us may have thought about: how does snow make silence even more silent? And notice Robert Haight's deft use of color, only those few flecks of red, and the rest of the poem pure white. And silent, so silent. Haight lives in Michigan, where people know about snow.
How Is It That the Snow
How is it that the snow
amplifies the silence,
slathers the black bark on limbs,
heaps along the brush rows?
Some deer have stood on their hind legs
to pull the berries down.
Now they are ghosts along the path,
snow flecked with red wine stains.
This silence in the timbers.
A woodpecker on one of the trees
taps out its story,
stopping now and then in the lapse
of one white moment into another.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2002 by Robert Haight from his most recent book of poetry, Emergences and Spinner Falls, New Issues Poetry and Prose, 2002. Reprinted by permission of Robert Haight. Introduction copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
******************************
American Life in Poetry provides newspapers and online publications with a free weekly column featuring contemporary American poems. The sole mission of this project is to promote poetry: American Life in Poetry seeks to create a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture. There are no costs for reprinting the columns; we do require that you register your publication here and that the text of the column be reproduced without alteration.
Posted by Bill Trippe at 3:33 PM
December 1, 2008
Desk for Sale
Details here. Feel free to email me if you are interested.
UPDATE: Lowered the price. Believe it.
Posted by Bill Trippe at 12:27 PM