Really enjoyed the poem below ~ hope you do as well!
American Life in Poetry: Column 380
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Lots of contemporary poems are merely little personal anecdotes set into lines, but I prefer my
anecdotes to have an overlay of magic. Here’s just such a poem by Shawn Pittard, who lives in
California.
The Silver Fish
I killed a great silver fish,
cut him open with a long
thin knife. The river carried
his heart away. I took his
dead eyes home. His red flesh
sang to me on the fire I built
in my backyard. His taste
was the lost memory of my
wildness. Behind amber clouds
of cedar smoke, Orion
drew his bow. A black moon rose
from the night’s dark waters,
a sliver of its bright face
reflecting back into the universe.
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 ©2011 by Shawn Pittard, from his most recent book of poems,
Standing in the River, Tebot Bach, 2011. Poem reprinted by permission of Shawn Pittard and the publisher. Introduction copyright 2012 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.
American Life in Poetry ©2006 The Poetry Foundation
Contact: alp@poetryfoundation.org
This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.
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