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Poetry by JC Snyder

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  • some love poems… or my version of love at least

    Girlhood Crush, Regressing

    Like my skin bursts away

    To Be In Love

    Elton John for Valentine’s Day

    How They Hang On

    Your Voice Glistens

    Happy Valentine’s Day my lovely readers 🙂 love love love…. la la la…..

    February 14, 2012

  • 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.
    February 13, 2012

  • 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……

    February 10, 2012

  • Published – EveryDayPoets.com "Let Us Return"

    Hi!
    Check out my latest piece on @EveryDayPoets ~ “Let Us Return“.

    Written for a friend’s wedding, this poem seeks to conceptualize the arc of love from a shaky beginning in a bar, to the streets of Paris, and back to the arms of comfortable old age… enjoy 🙂

    February 8, 2012

  • "Eight Ball" by Claudi Emerson [American Life in Poetry]

    Hi friends! Below is another interesting feature from the American Life in Poetry column, hosted by Ted Kooser. As I always, I highly encourage you to sign up~ it’s a happy bit of email in your day!
     
    American Life in Poetry: Column 359

    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

    It was fifty cents a game
                 beneath exhausted ceiling fans,
    the smoke’s old spiral. Hooded lights
                 burned distant, dull. I was tired, but you
    insisted on one more, so I chalked
                 the cue—the bored blue—broke, scratched.
    It was always possible
                 for you to run the table, leave me
    nothing. But I recall the easy
                 shot you missed, and then the way
    we both studied, circling—keeping
                 what you had left me between us.

    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 ©2005 by Claudia Emerson, whose most recent book of poetry is Figure Studies, Louisiana State University Press, 2008. Poem reprinted from Late Wife, Louisiana State University Press, 2005, by permission of Claudia Emerson 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.
    February 7, 2012

  • and outside the planes

    and in a sky powdered blue
    it appears a child has fingerpainted
    a relief of lines breathed into life
    by those traveling
    like the eyes still blue of a doll baby
    looking for those leaving and
    those coming screaming back to
    the arms of their lovers
    waiting outside looking up and up
    lines powered white like lips smacking
    sugary and sure, guilty
    like a child caught painting on the walls.

    February 2, 2012

  • in the details [Emerson and his circles]

    [the patterns of fur, just around the nose
    or the way the one blue brick brushes up towards the heavens
    while one tall parsley plant pushes strong through the blinds]

    reading, on yellowed pages, how Emerson believes in circles

    yet it seems to us, young, impatient, only one line
    we’re forced to follow straight
    like accountants in green visors squinting
    patiently close
    while the numbers so dutifully march.

    we’ll realize sometime, later, that lines never end,
    and some, if they start over again, mean Emerson
    may have known better all along.

    February 1, 2012

  • evaporation

    no longer even a specter,
    your memory has lost edges the way
    a dried tear evaporates back into nothing
    edges become a mist
    elemental, invisible, and
    while i no longer recognize you
    icy hands move the hair from my eyes
    while sleep alone steals time.

    January 31, 2012

  • alone in a crowd

    Empty… yet the room full
    of chatter lengthened like so
    many shadows running, like how a cacaphony
    creates a vaccum to float weightless in.

    January 26, 2012

  • State of the Union (and "forget the past" poem)

    i’m watching the President – are you? i’ll be back tomorrow….

    poets unite!

    forget the past (1938)

    January 25, 2012

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