Introduction by Ted Kooser: Barbara Crooker, who lives in Pennsylvania, has become one of this column's favorite poets. We try to publish work that a broad audience of readers can understand and, we hope, may be moved by, and this particular writer is very good at that. Here's an example from her collection, Gold, from Cascade Books.

Grief

is a river you wade in until you get to the other side.

But I am here, stuck in the middle, water parting

around my ankles, moving downstream

over the flat rocks. I'm not able to lift a foot,

move on. Instead, I'm going to stay here

in the shallows with my sorrow, nurture it

like a cranky baby, rock it in my arms.

I don't want it to grow up, go to school, get married.

It's mine. Yes, the October sunlight wraps me

in its yellow shawl, and the air is sweet

as a golden Tokay. On the other side,

there are apples, grapes, walnuts,

and the rocks are warm from the sun.

But I'm going to stand here,

growing colder, until every inch

of my skin is numb. I can't cross over.

Then you really will be gone.

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 ©2013 by Barbara Crooker, “Grief” (Gold, Cascade Books, 2013). Poem reprinted by permission of Barbara Crooker and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2016 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.

Photo courtesy Bianca Mentil

Introduction by Ted Kooser: When we’re feeling sorry for ourselves it can help to make a list of things for which we’re grateful. Here is a fine poem of gratitude by Barbara Crooker, who lives in Pennsylvania, and its images make up just such a list. This is from her book Small Rain from Purple Flag Press.

Sustenance

The sky hangs up its starry pictures: a swan,

a crab, a horse. And even though you’re

three hundred miles away, I know you see

them, too. Right now, my side

of the bed is empty, a clear blue lake

of flannel. The distance yawns and stretches.

It’s hard to remember we swim in an ocean

of great love, so easy to fall into bickering

like little birds at the feeder fighting over proso

and millet, unaware of how large the bag of grain is,

a river of golden seeds, that the harvest was plentiful,

the corn is in the barn, and whenever we’re hungry,

a dipperful of just what we need will be spilled . . .

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 ©2014 by Barbara Crooker, “Sustenance,” from Small Rain, (Purple Flag Press, 2014). Poem reprinted by permission of Barbara Crooker and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2015 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.

Photo courtesy Ryan McGuire

Introduction by Ted Kooser: I’m especially fond of sparklers because they were among the very few fireworks we could obtain in Iowa when I was a boy. And also because in 2004 we set off the fire alarm system at the Willard Hotel in Washington by lighting a few to celebrate my inauguration as poet laureate. Here’s Barbara Crooker, of Pennsylvania, also looking back.

Sparklers

We’re writing our names with sizzles of light

to celebrate the fourth. I use the loops of cursive,

make a big B like the sloping hills on the west side

of the lake. The rest, little a, r, one small b,

spit and fizz as they scratch the night. On the side

of the shack where we bought them, a handmade sign:

Trailer Full of Sparkles Ahead, and I imagine crazy

chrysanthemums, wheels of fire, glitter bouncing

off metal walls. Here, we keep tracing in tiny

pyrotechnics the letters we were given at birth,

branding them on the air. And though my mother’s

name has been erased now, I write it, too:

a big swooping I, a hissing s, an a that sighs

like her last breath, and then I ring

belle, belle, belle in the sulphuric smoky dark.

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 ©2013 by Barbara Crooker from her most recent book of poems, Gold, Cascade Books, 2013. Poem reprinted by permission of Barbara Crooker and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2014 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.