Category Archives: poetry

"My mother was like the bees" by Jeanne Wagner (American Life in Poetry)

Good day readers, I have returned from New Zealand and while I sort out my own ideas, thought I would start the week off with Ted Kooser’s pick…. Enjoy!

American Life in Poetry: Column 366
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I don’t think we’ve ever published a poem about a drinker. Though there are lots of poems on this topic, many of them are too judgmental for my liking. But here’s one I like, by Jeanne Wagner, of Kensington, California, especially for its original central comparison.

My mother was like the bees

because she needed a lavish taste
on her tongue,
a daily tipple of amber and gold
to waft her into the sky,
a soluble heat trickling down her throat.
Who could blame her
for starting out each morning
with a swig of something furious
in her belly, for days
when she dressed in flashy lamé
leggings like a starlet,
for wriggling and dancing a little madly,
her crazy reels and her rumbas,
for coming home wobbly
with a flicker of clover’s inflorescence
still clinging to her clothes,
enough to light the darkness
of a pitch-black hive.

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 Jeanne Wagner from her most recent book of poetry, “In the Body of Our Lives,” Sixteen Rivers Press, 2010. Poem reprinted by permission of Jeanne Wagner 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.

"Second Tour" from American Life in 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.

American Life in Poetry: Moment by Gloor

Another brilliant recommendation by Mr. Ted Kooser. Take a look at Carol Gloor’s poem below and enjoy!
 
American Life in Poetry: Column 360

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

At the moment of my mother’s death
I am rinsing frozen chicken.
No vision, no rending
of the temple curtain, only
the soft give of meat.
I had not seen her in four days.
I thought her better,
and the hospital did not call,
so I am fresh from
an office Christmas party,
scotch on my breath
as I answer the phone.
And in one moment all my past acts
become irrevocable.

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 Carol L. Gloor, whose chapbook is Giving Death the Raspberries, Thorntree Press, 1991. Poem reprinted from Calyx: A Journal of Art and Literature by Women, Vol. 25, no. 3, Winter 2010, by permission of Carol L. Gloor 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.

from pupil to widening pupil

and the wolf man looks in my direction and
we share a conversation through our eyes
the way it is when you have oceans to cross
before morning the way light takes its sweet time
from pupil to widening pupil and i know you’re
with her but the possibilities linger like so many
silent proclamations of could it be that love comes
in so many ways? could it be that we in another time
would have been queen and king of this rotten
bar this rotten dirt patch that clings to our rooted feet……