An unexpected gift on the Times Op-Ed page last Sunday, cohabiting with bleak post election columns by Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd: Six poems marking the end of daylight saving time. The work is all by blue chip poets—James Tate, Vijay Seshadri, Louise Glück, W. S. Merwin as well as the two whose poems I […]
Louise Gluck
Quiet Revelations
Former US poet laureate Louise Gluck, whose poetry I have posted here many times, just won the coveted Wallace Stevens award. Well deserved. Also awarded: An academy fellowship granted to Brigit Pegeen Kelly, a runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize in 2005. After reading some of her work online, I am adding Kelly to my list. […]
From the Center of My Life Came a Great Fountain
The Wild Iris At the end of my suffering there was a door. Hear me out: that which you call death I remember. Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting. Then nothing. The weak sun flickered over the dry surface. It is terrible to survive as consciousness buried in the dark earth. Then it was […]
Thoughts On a Moonbeam for a New Year
Moonbeam The mist rose with a little sound. Like a thud. Which was the heart beating. And the sun rose, briefly diluted. And after what seemed years, it sank again and twilight washed over the shore and deepened there. And from out of nowhere lovers came, people who still had bodies and hearts. Who still […]
Evidence
Matins You want to know how I spend my time? I walk the front lawn, pretending to be weeding. You ought to know I’m never weeding, on my knees, pulling clumps of clover from the flower beds: in fact I’m looking for courage, for some evidence my life will change, though it takes forever, checking […]
What Could Such Glory Be If Not a Heart?
Georgia O’Keefe’s version The Red Poppy The great thing is not having a mind. Feelings: oh, I have those; they govern me. I have a lord in heaven called the sun, and open for him, showing him the first of my own heart, fire like his presence. What could such glory be if not a […]