Category Archives: American Life in Poetry

What a last line by poet Kathryn Stripling Byer. Check it out~

American Life in Poetry: Column 374
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

The following poem by Kathryn Stripling Byer is the second in a series of related poems called
Southern Fictions. Despite all the protective barriers we put up between us and the world, there’s
always a man with a wink that can rip right through. Byer has served as North Carolina’s Poet
Laureate.

I still can’t get it right

I don’t know. I still can’t get it right,
the way those dirt roads cut across the flats
and led to shacks where hounds and muddy shoats
skulked roundabouts. Describing it sounds trite
as hell, the good old South I love to hate.
The truth? What’s that? How should I know?
I stayed inside too much. I learned to boast
of stupid things. I kept my ears shut tight,
as we kept doors locked, windows locked,
the curtains drawn. Now I know why.
The dark could hide things from us. Dark could see
what we could not. Sometimes those dirt roads shocked
me, where they ended up: I watched a dog die
in the ditch. The man who shot him winked at me.

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 ©2001 by Kathryn Stripling Byer from her most recent book of poems,
Southern Fictions, Jacar Press, 2011. Descent, her new collection, is forthcoming from LSU Press.
Reprinted by permission of Kathryn Stripling Byer 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.

American Life in Poetry: Column 370
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Here’s a fine poem about family love and care by Janet Eigner, who lives in Santa Fe, New
Mexico. You can feel that blessing touch the crown of your head, can’t you?

Isaac’s Blessing

When Isaac, a small, freckled boy
approaching seven, visits us for Family Camp,
playing pirate with his rubber sword,

sometimes he slumps in grief,
trudging along, his sacrifice and small violin
in hand, his palm over his chest,

saying, Mother is here
in my heart. Before he leaves for home,
we ask if he’d like a Jewish blessing.

Our grandson’s handsome face ignites;
he chirps a rousing, yes, for a long life.
We unfold the prayer shawl,

its Hebrew letters silvering the spring light,
hold the white tallis above his head,
recite the blessing in its ancient language

and then the English, adding, for a long life.
Isaac complains, the tallis didn’t
touch his head, so he didn’t feel the blessing.

We lower its silken ceiling
to graze his dark hair,
repeat the prayer.

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 ©2009 by Janet Eigner, whose most recent book of poetry is What Lasts is the Breath, Black Swan Editions, 2012. Reprinted from Cornstalk Mother, Pudding House Publications, 2009, by permission of Janet Eigner 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.

I hope you enjoy the lovely poem by Laurel Blossom as much as I did. And here’s the link if you care to read my essay on E.B. White, also one of my favorite writers (as referenced by Ted Kooser below).

American Life in Poetry: Column 369
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
E.B. White, one of my favorite writers, used to say, “Simplify, simplify, simplify,” but that doesn’t mean that writing has to be simple, which is a different matter. Here’s a fine poem by Laurel Blossom of South Carolina that’s been simplified into a pure, clean beauty.

Red Balloon Rising

I tied it to your wrist
With a pretty pink bow, torn off
By the first little tug of wind.
I’m sorry.

I jumped to catch it, but not soon enough.
It darted away.

It still looked large and almost within reach.
Like a heart.

Watch, I said.
You squinted your little eyes.

The balloon looked happy, waving
Good-bye.

The sky is very high today, I said.
Red went black, a polka dot,

Then not. We watched it,
Even though we couldn’t

Spot it anymore at all.
Even after that.

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 Laurel Blossom, whose most recent book of poetry is “Degrees of Latitude” Four Way Books, 2007. Poem reprinted from “Pleiades,” Vol. 31, no. 1, 2011, by permission of Laurel Blossom 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

Simply fantastic poem today from Ted Kooser’s column. If you haven’t checked out his “American Life in Poetry” yet – now is the day. For a born and bred East Coaster, this poem surprised me and actually made me long to live on the plains.

American Life in Poetry: Column 367
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I’ve lived on the Great Plains all my life, and if I ever left this region for too long, I would dearly
miss it. This lovely poem by Carol Light, who lives in Washington state, reminds me of that.

Prairie Sure

Would I miss the way a breeze dimples
the butter-colored curtains on Sunday mornings,
or nights gnashed by cicadas and thunderstorms?
The leaning gossip, the half-alive ripple
of sunflowers, sagging eternities of corn
and sorghum, September preaching yellow, yellow
in all directions, the windowsills swelling
with Mason jars, the blue sky bluest borne
through tinted glass above the milled grains?
The dust, the heat, distrusted, the screen door
slapping as the slat-backed porch swing sighs,
the hatch of houseflies, the furlongs of freight trains,
and how they sing this routine, so sure, so sure—
the rote grace of every tempered life?

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 Carol Light, whose poems have been published in Prairie Schooner, Poetry Northwest and elsewhere. Poem reprinted from The Literary Bohemian, Issue 12, June 2011, by permission of Carol Light 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.

Another great pick from Mr. Kooser – worth sharing today! Enjoy, and remember to subscribe if you like what you see 🙂

American Life in Poetry: Column 363
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Psychologists must have a word for it, the phenomenon of shifting the focus of sadness from the source of that sadness to something else. Here’s a fine poem on this subject by Penelope Scambly Schott, who lives in Oregon.

Second Tour

While my husband packed to fly back to Vietnam,
this time as a tourist instead of a soldier,

I drove to the zoo to say goodbye to the musk oxen
who were being shipped out early next morning

to Tacoma. We were getting lions instead.
When I got there, it was too easy to park.

The zoo was closing early so they wouldn’t let me in.
I went back to my car and slid into the driver’s seat.

Sobs tore from deep in my chest, I who had never
seen a musk ox and never cared until now.

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 ©2010 by Penelope Scambly Schott, from her most recent book of poems, “Crow Mercies,” Calyx Books, 2010. Poem first appeared in “Arroyo Literary Review,” Vol. 2, Spring 2010. Reprinted by permission of Penelope Scambly Schott and the publishers. 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.

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Carol L. Gloor is an attorney living in Chicago and Savanna, Illinois. I especially like this poem of hers for its powerful ending, which fittingly uses the legal language of trusts and estates.

Moment

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

At a time when a relationship is falling apart, sometimes the news of its failure doesn’t come out of a mouth but from gestures. Claudia Emerson, who lives in Virginia, here captures a telling moment.

Eight Ball