busy writing

Been busy the past few days writing a short story for the Urbanite Baltimore Fiction Storyteller’s prize – not my natural genre but I’ve given it a shot.

I’ll be back with the poetry next week! Until then, enjoy this selection from two years ago (can it really be two years already?!)

The Art of Waving Goodbye
http://www.presssendpoetry.com/2010/06/art-of-waving-goodbye.html 

"Loving the Hands" by Julie Suk

Enjoy this beautiful poem from Julie Suk! 

American Life in Poetry: Column 377
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Julie Suk is a North Carolinian who like all good writers has taught herself to pay attention to
what’s happening right under her nose. Here’s a good example of her poetry.

Loving the Hands

I could make a wardrobe
with tufts of wool
caught on thistle and bracken.

Lost—the scraps
I might have woven whole cloth.

Come watch, the man says,
shearing sheep
with the precision of long practice,
fleece, removed all of a piece,
rolled in a neat bundle.

I’ve been so clumsy
with people who’ve loved me.

Straddling a ewe,
the man props its head on his foot,
leans down with clippers,
each pass across the coat a caress.

His dogs, lying nearby,
tremble at every move—as I do,
loving the hands that have learned
to gentle the life beneath them.

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 Julie Suk, from her most recent book of poems, Lie Down with Me: New and Selected Poems, Autumn House Press, 2011. Poem reprinted by permission of Julie Suk 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.

je ne sais quoi

Dreams like

Shadowy walk
ways – dreams
like slipping
quietly through
a glass mirror.

On the other
side, this small
fugacious life
reflects a certain
je ne sais quoi.

Watch your body

like your lover does,
watch your mind
obsess over
smallest things like
dirt under nails.

Recognize yourself at
your soul’s oldest age –
we all have this ability
if we choose it.

Guest Post: "I still can’t get it right"

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.