Author Archives: presssendpoetry

Author and editor for Press Send Poetry. Marketing for Barcoding, Inc. #Baltimore #Poet

"School" by Daniel J. Langton

Brilliant, clever poem from Daniel J. Langton – Enjoy!

American Life in Poetry: Column 392

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
It’s the time of the year for school supplies, and here’s a poem by Daniel J. Langton about just
one of the items you’ll need to pick up. Langton lives in San Francisco.

School

I was sent home the first day
with a note: Danny needs a ruler.
My father nodded, nothing seemed so apt.
School is for rules, countries need rulers,
graphs need graphing, the world is straight ahead.

It had metrics one side, inches the other.
You could see where it started
and why it stopped, a foot along,
how it ruled the flighty pen,
which petered out sideways when you dreamt.

I could have learned a lot,
understood latitude, or the border with Canada,
so stern compared to the South
and its unruly river with two names.
But that first day, meandering home, I dropped it.

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 Daniel J. Langton, whose most recent book of poems, During Our Walks, is forthcoming from Blue Light Press. Poem reprinted from New Letters, Vol. 77, Nos. 3&4, by permission of Daniel J. Langton 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.

POST 600!!!!! Plus a poem by Kay Ryan

Wow!!! I can hardly believe it but we’ve reached post 600! Let’s throw a party 🙂
Need another reason to throw a party? I will have two poems in print (some of us still care about print) in the new EveryDayPoets Anthology 2. More on that book to come…

Now, let’s get back to poetry. Today’s poem is from Kay Ryan as featured on American Life in Poetry! Enjoy!

American Life in Poetry: Column 391
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Kay Ryan was our nation’s Poet Laureate at The Library of Congress for the 2008-2010 terms.
Her poetry is celebrated for its compression; she can get a great deal into a few words. Here’s an
example of a poem swift and accurate as a dart.

Pinhole

We say
pinhole.
A pin hole
of light. We
can’t imagine
how bright
more of it
could be,
the way
this much
defeats night.
It almost
isn’t fair,
whoever
poked this,
with such
a small act
to vanquish
blackness.

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 Kay Ryan, whose most recent book of poems is Odd Blocks, Selected and New Poems, Carcanet Press, 2011. Poem reprinted from Poetry, October 2011, by permission of Kay Ryan 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.

"Born at the Wrong Time"

wanted to take a look at one i posted back in the first days of this here blog 🙂 enjoy and have a great weekend. #readpoetry!

***
One summer, I saw a Texas-style Paul McCartney
in a dark mahogany leather coat
slurring to Bob Dylan’s “rainy day woman”
outside the full moon at a wrangler bonfire in
Colorado.

Last night, I saw a gray haired woman, four feet tall,
in full length tattered gown
swirling in her mess of beads
and her hands in the air like she was
summoning back
the 60’s.

I saw myself tripping on the old Baltimore cobblestones.
I saw myself drunk with Janis and having a grand old time.

"From a Bridge" Guest Post

WOW. gives me the chills – enjoy this fine poem by David St. John, courtesy of American Life in Poetry. If you haven’t yet signed up for the column, you can do so here.

American Life in Poetry: Column 390
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
David St. John is a California poet whose meticulous care with every word has always impressed
me. This poem is a fine example of how clarity can let us see all the way to the heart.

From a Bridge

I saw my mother standing there below me
On the narrow bank just looking out over the river

Looking at something just beyond the taut middle rope
Of the braided swirling currents

Then she looked up quite suddenly to the far bank
Where the densely twined limbs of the cypress

Twisted violently toward the storm-struck sky
There are some things we know before we know

Also some things we wish we would not ever know
Even if as children we already knew & so

Standing above her on that bridge that shuddered
Each time the river ripped at its wooden pilings

I knew I could never even fate willing ever
Get to her in time

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 David St. John, whose new collection, The Auroras, is forthcoming from Harper Collins. Poem reprinted from “Poetry,” July/August 2011, by permission of David St. John 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.

Not Carl Sandburg’s Men

Our men crack Bohs,
trade tales slurring
to a pause; days spent
crawling over coal and salt hills
like Sisyphus.

If these had been
Carl Sandburg’s men,
their backs would be bronzed and
their spines made
elegant like Chicago corn.

But this is Baltimore.
Our bones are the Bay’s
murmurs; those
armed with intentions
are weak by pavement,

Oh Carl,
such danger here –
that hopelessness, even
doors stay off their hinges
too sore to do their work.

the me in gasoline

the me in gasoline on water is a rainbow
of potential sliding around, skimming the tops, spreading then
unraveling with every
exhale of the Bay
shape shifting like a scream
my perplexed smirk distorted then tortured
and mad in the only possible way

the slick bird above me
purple to orange to blue to barely discernible shine –   
oh shine on, you gull, shine on
free from such thin and colorful prisons as this.

Quietly Disappearing (To Mia)

Friend, I asked the great poets but for all their flowery words
They couldn’t capture your breathless manner of speaking.
I searched the sea and the ocean but they just kept repeating,
(Repeating) and I beseeched the birds but they just kept circling and
I was dizzy; a statue? too stiff, unfeeling.
Flowers? too trite with grieving – I went back pleading with the poets
“Write me a new constellation in the sky and call it Mia!” but they
Gave me cold cracked bells tolling, so unappealing–
More fitting – I on a marble stoop sitting, my beer streaming out,

Watching bubbles slowing, exhales burying a sidewalk steaming,
All… all… quietly disappearing.