BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE Contrary to the glamorized accounts we often read about the lives of single women, Amy Fleury, a native of Kansas, presents us with a realistic, affirmative picture. Her poem playfully presents her life as serendipitous, yet she doesn’t shy away from acknowledging loneliness. At Twenty-Eight It seems I get [...]
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE A worm in an apple, a maggot in a bone, a person in the world. What might seem an odd assortment of creatures is beautifully interrelated by the Massachusetts poet Pat Schneider. Her poem suggests that each living thing is richly awake to its own particular, limited world. There [...]
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE Midwestern poet Richard Newman traces the imaginary life of coins as a connection between people. The coins–seemingly of little value–become a ceremonial and communal currency. Coins My change: a nickel caked with finger grime; two nicked quarters not long for this life, worth more for keeping dead eyes shut [...]
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE Poet Ruth L. Schwartz writes of the glimpse of possibility, of something sweeter than we already have that comes to us, grows in us. The unrealizable part of it causes bitterness; the other opens outward, the cycle complete. This is both a poem about a tangerine and about more [...]
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE Writing poetry, reading poetry, we are invited to join with others in celebrating life, even the ordinary, daily pleasures. Here the Seattle poet and physician, Peter Pereira, offer us a simple meal. A Pot of Red Lentils simmers on the kitchen stove. All afternoon dense kernels surrender to the [...]
Part I It is an ancient Mariner, And he stoppeth one of three. ‘By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, Now wherefore stopp’st thou me? The Bridegroom’s doors are opened wide, And I am next of kin; The guests are met, the feast is set: May’st hear the merry din.’ He holds him with [...]
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE This fine poem by Rodney Torreson, of Grand Rapids, Michigan, looks into the world of boys arriving at the edge of manhood, and compares their natural wildness to that of dogs, with whom they feel a kinship. On A Moonstruck Gravel Road The sheep-killing dogs saunter home, wool scraps [...]
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE The poet, novelist and biographer, Robert Morgan, who was raised in North Carolina, has written many intriguing poems that teach his readers about southern folklore. Here’s just one example. Holy Cussing When the most intense revivals swept the mountains just a century ago, participants described the shouts and barks [...]
She walks in beauty She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that ‘s best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes: Thus mellow’d to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies. One shade the more, one ray the less, Had half [...]
Nora: It was tonight, when the wonderful thing did not happen; then I saw you were not the man I had thought you were;. I have waited so patiently for eight years; for, goodness knows, I knew very well that wonderful things don’t happen every day. Then this horrible misfortune came upon me; and then [...]