A POEM ABOUT WHITE APPLES
white apples, first apples of summer,
with skin as delicate as a baby’s,
crispy like white winter snow.
your smell won’t let me sleep,
this is how dead men
are haunting their murderers’ dreams.
white apples,
this is how every july the earth
gets heavier under your weight.
and here only garbage smells like garbage;
and here only tears taste like [...]
by Sidney Lanier
Superb and sole, upon a plumed spray
That o’er the general leafage boldly grew,
He summ’d the woods in song; or typic drew
The watch of hungry hawks, the lone dismay
Of languid doves when long their lovers stray,
And all birds’ passion-plays that sprinkle dew
At morn in brake or bosky avenue.
Whate’er birds did or dreamed, this bird [...]
American Life in Poetry: Column 067
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
One in a series of elegies by New York City poet Catherine Barnett, this poem
describes the first gathering after death has shaken a family to its core. The
father tries to help his grown daughter forget for a moment that, a year earlier,
her own two [...]
American Life in Poetry: Column 066
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Some of the most telling poetry being written in our country today has to do with
the smallest and briefest of pleasures. Here Marie Howe of New York captures a
magical moment: sitting in the shelter of a leafy tree with the rain falling all
around.
The Copper [...]
American Life in Poetry: Column 065
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Visiting a familiar and once dear place after a long absence can knock the words right out of us, and in this poem, Keith Althaus of Massachusetts observes this happening to someone else. I like the way he suggests, at the end, that it [...]
Sonnet
She took the dappled partridge flecked with blood,
And in her hand the drooping pheasant bare,
And by his feet she held the woolly hare,
And like a master painting where she stood,
Looked some new goddess of an English wood.
Nor could I find an imperfection there,
Nor blame the wanton act that showed so fair–
To me whatever freak she [...]
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Remember those Degas paintings of the ballet dancers? Here is a similar figure study, in muted color, but in this instance made of words, not pigment. As this poem by David Tucker closes, I can feel myself holding my breath as if to help the dancer hold her position.
The [...]
Im Jardin des Plantes, Paris
Sein Blick ist vom Vorübergehn der Stäbe
so müd geworden, daß er nichts mehr hält.
Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Stäbe gäbe
und hinter tausend Stäben keine Welt.
Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte,
der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht,
ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte,
in der betäubt ein großer Wille steht
Nur manchmal [...]
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE
Everywhere I travel I meet people who want to write poetry but worry that what they write won’t be “any good.” No one can judge the worth of a poem before it’s been written, and setting high standards for yourself can keep you from writing. And if you don’t write [...]
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE
Most of us have taken at least a moment or two to reflect upon what we have learned from our mothers. Through a catalog of meaningful actions that range from spiritual to domestic, Pennsylvanian Julia Kasdorf evokes the imprint of her mother’s life on her own. As the poem closes, [...]