It seems to me that most poems are set in spring or summer, and I was pleased to discover this one by Molly Fisk, a Californian, set in cold midwinter.
I love listening to shop talk, to overhear people talking about their work. Their speech is not only rich with the colorful names of tools and processes, but it’s also full of resignation.
This week’s column is by Ladan Osman, who is originally from Somalia but who now lives in Chicago. I like “Tonight” for the way it looks with clear eyes at one of the rough edges of American life, then greets us with a hopeful wave.
People have been learning to cook since our ancient ancestors discovered fire, and most of us learn from somebody who knows how. I love this little poem by Daniel Nyikos of Utah, for its contemporary take on accepting directions from an elder, from two elders in this instance.
We all hope our children’s lives will be better than our own, and invest in that hope in a variety of ways. Here Michael Ryan of California compares what we can provide for them with what we can’t.
South Dakota poet Leo Dangel has written some of the best and truest poems about rural life that I’m aware of. Here’s a fine one about a chance discovery.
I’ve always been fascinated by miniatures of all kinds, the little glass animals I played with as a boy, electric trains, dollhouses, and I think it’s because I can feel that I’m in complete control. Everything is right in its place, and I’m the one who put it there. Here’s a poem by Kay Mullen, who lives in Washington, about the art of bonsai.
Those of us who have gone back home to attend a reunion of classmates may have felt the strangeness of being a vaguely familiar person among others who, too, seem vaguely familiar. Dana Gioia, who served the country for four years as the Chair of the National Endowment for the Arts, is an accomplished poet and a noted advocate for poetry.
Here is a lovely poem by Robert Cording, a poet who lives in Connecticut, which shows us a fresh new way of looking at something commonplace. That’s the kind of valuable service a poet can provide.
I’d guess that nearly everyone is aware that time seems to speed up as we age. Whenever I say that something happened ten years ago, my wife reminds me that it was twenty. Here’s a poem about time by the distinguished Maryland poet, Linda Pastan.
It is estimated that one out of five Americans enjoys spending time bird watching, or birding, and here’s a poem for some of those people by Kathleen M. McCann, who lives in Massachusetts. I especially like the way she captures the egret’s stealthy motion in the second stanza.
Humans first prized horses for their strength and speed, but we have since been captivated by their beauty, their deep eyes and mysterious silences. Here’s a poem by Robert Wrigley, who lives in Idaho, where the oldest fossilized remains of the modern horse were found.
I’ve gotten to the age at which I spend a lot of time remembering, and it’s the fragments that seem to affect me the most, fleeting glimpses into the past that leave me still reaching for something I can’t quite grasp. Here Roy Scheele, a fine Nebraska poet, perfectly captures one of those passing memories.
I don’t often mention literary forms, but of this lovely poem by Cecilia Woloch I want to suggest that the form, a villanelle, which uses a pattern of repetition, adds to the enchantment I feel in reading it. It has a kind of layering, like memory itself. Woloch lives and teaches in southern California.
Some of us have more active fantasy lives than others, but all of us have them. Here Karin Gottshall, who lives in Vermont, shares a variety of loneliness that some of our readers may have experienced.
I am especially fond of what we might call landscape poems, describing places, scenes. Here April Lindner, who lives in Philadelphia, paints a scene we might come upon on the back side of any great American city.
Many of us have attempted to console friends who have recently been divorced, and though it can be a pretty hard sell, we have assured them that things will indeed be better with the passage of time. Here’s a fine poem of consolation by Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, who teaches at Penn State.
Here’s a fine poem by my fellow Nebraskan, Barbara Schmitz, who here offers us a picture of people we’ve all observed but haven’t thought to write about.
For me, the most worthwhile poetry is that which reaches out and connects with a great number of people, and this one, by Joe Mills of North Carolina, does just that. Every parent gets questions like the one at the center of this poem.
When I was a little boy, the fear of polio hung over my summers, keeping me away from the swimming pool. Atomic energy was then in its infancy. It had defeated Japan and seemed to be America’s friend. Jehanne Dubrow, who lives and teaches in Maryland, is much younger than I, and she grew up under the fearsome cloud of what atomic energy was to become.
