Poetry

Starry Voices

August 06, 2014


Introduction by Ted Kooser: Readers of this column during the past year have by now learned how enthusiastic I am about poems describing everyday life. I’ve tried to show how the ordinary can be made extraordinary through close and transforming observation. Here Tess Gallagher goes to the mailbox to post a letter. We’ve all done that, haven’t we? But notice how closely she pays attention to this simple experience, and how she fits this one moment into the meaning of her life.

Under Stars

The sleep of this night deepens
because I have walked coatless from the house
carrying the white envelope.
All night it will say one name
in its little tin house by the roadside.

I have raised the metal flag
so its shadow under the roadlamp
leaves an imprint on the rain-heavy bushes.
Now I will walk back
thinking of the few lights still on
in the town a mile away.

In the yellowed light of a kitchen
the millworker has finished his coffee,
his wife has laid out the white slices of bread
on the counter. Now while the bed they have left
is still warm, I will think of you, you
who are so far away
you have caused me to look up at the stars.

Tonight they have not moved
from childhood, those games played after dark.
Again I walk into the wet grass
toward the starry voices. Again, I
am the found one, intimate, returned
by all I touch on the way.

“Under Stars” copyright 1987 by Tess Gallagher. Reprinted from “Amplitude: New & Selected Poems” with the permission of Graywolf Press, Saint Paul, Minnesota. Gallagher’s most recent book of poetry is “Dear Ghosts: Poems,” Graywolf Press, 2006. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, the Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Alan Bennett

The Best Moments in Reading

July 30, 2014



“The best moments in reading are when you come across something—a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things—which you had thought special and particular to you. And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out, and taken yours”
—Alan Bennett, The History Boys

Are there any writers you feel this way about?

Everyday adventures

Visitors, Both Welcome and Unwelcome

July 28, 2014

Last week my friend Kerri came to stay with me, a most welcome visitor. Kerri and I have been friends since college, and now have the misfortune to live at opposite ends of the country—me in Florida, and Kerri in Washington. We haven’t seen each other in more than a year, and there was much talking (an understatement), eating, puzzling and general merry-making. We crisscrossed the state meeting other friends, both mutual and new to me (hi, Deb!). Despite our late hours and our busy schedule, I feel refreshed and energized by her visit. There’s nothing like the tonic of time spent with a good friend.

I’ll share a few highlights of our simple pleasures and everyday adventures.

Beautiful St. Augustine:
Castillo de San Marcos

Aviles Street--purported to be the oldest in America

St. Augustine Lighthouse

View from the top of the lighthouse

Our 1000-piece puzzle. It was tough!


The beautiful Rainbow River (we floated down it on inner tubes with our friend LuAnne):

On the morning Kerri left, we had a most unwelcome visitor—a coral snake:


Prudy was stalking it (!!). We quickly got her and it out of there. 

My life would be barren without friends—they are essential for my happiness. I’m incredibly lucky to have the ones I have. I need to make sure that time with friends stays at the top of the priority list.

What have you done with your friends lately?

I miss her already

Catharine Savage Brosman

Knee-deep in Green

July 23, 2014

Photo courtesy Bill Davenport

Introduction by Ted Kooser: The Impressionists, on both sides of the Atlantic, gave us a number of handsome paintings of  rural scenes, and here’s a poem by the distinguished American poet, Catharine Savage Brosman, that offers us just such a picture, not in pigments but in words.

Cattle Fording Tarryall Creek

With measured pace, they move in single file,
dark hides, white faces, plodding through low grass,
then walk into the water, cattle-style,
indifferent to the matter where they pass.

The stream is high, the current swift—good rain,
late snow-melt, cold. Immerging to the flank,
the beasts proceed, a queue, a bovine chain,
impassive, stepping to the farther bank—

continuing their march, as if by word,
down valley to fresh pasture. The elect,
and stragglers, join, and recompose the herd,
both multiple and single, to perfect

impressions of an animated scene,
the creek’s meanders, milling cows, and sun.
Well cooled, the cattle graze knee-deep in green.
We leave them to their feed, this painting done.


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 Catharine Savage Brosman, whose most recent book of poems is On the North Slope, Mercer University Press, 2012. Poem reprinted by permission of Catharine Savage Brosman. 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.

Problems

Summer Rerun--Attention: Your Peppers Are Shriveled

July 21, 2014

Note: I'm taking a more relaxed approach to blogging this summer, so occasionally I'm going to rerun a previous post. I hope you enjoy this one, from 2010. 

 This is what happens when 95 degrees meets inattentive gardener:


Here’s the same plant after a drink of water and a good night’s rest:


This little ornamental pepper is amazingly resilient—I’m sorry to say this is not the first time she’s wilted in the heat. Still, she survives, even after freezing temperatures in the winter and practically dying of thirst in the summer.

If you look closely, you’ll see a few peppers still a bit wizened from their lack of water. Just like the peppers, we often wear the battle scars of what we’ve been through—in our faces, in our eyes, in our hearts. Yet still we come back for more, still we reach upwards toward the light—even though sometimes that light scorches us. For us, a drink of water and a good night’s sleep may be only the beginning of what we need to recover. We may need a box of assorted chocolates, an hour of solitude, a friend’s ear, or even professional help.

If you’re struggling right now, wilting in the sun, reflect on what you really need to get through today, and the day after, and the day after that. Be an attentive gardener—don’t wait until your leaves are drooping and your peppers are shriveled before you give yourself that cool drink of water that makes all the difference. I promise you’ll feel better in the morning.