I once wrote an elegy
for Ray Carver titled
“Say Crazy Sometimes,”
but it is lost now,
and I don’t know how to retrieve it.
Not even from memory.
My own.
Not so very trustworthy
database of the trivial
contains what I want.
Disappeared.
Do you remember?
Will you share?
I seem to have lost my energy for this project, if, indeed, I ever had it. It has languished for a few weeks now, and perhaps the problem is in the title. “Bain Books Daily Poem.” For crying out loud, what was I thinking? I grow myself a beard because I don’t like shaving every day. I can barely get my arms around the fact that my espresso machine is so fine that I absolutely have to make coffee every day. And the dogs wonder if they will ever be walked by me again. Did I really think I would be able to accomplish a daily poem, or poem news, or a poetry prompt, or anything related to dailiness?
Yes, apparently I did. But now I’m not so sure. Especially if I require it of myself.
I will rethink this whole thing and get back to you. Until then, be patient, okay? I still love you all.
I do.
Honestly.
Blessings,
Terry
TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006 — Our species has developed monstrous weapons that can kill not only all of us but everything else on the planet, yet when the wind rises we run for cover, as we have done for as long as we’ve been on this earth. Here’s hoping we never have the skill or arrogance to conquer the weather. And weather stories? We tell them in the same way our ancestors related encounters with fearsome dragons. This poem by Minnesota poet Warren Woessner honors the tradition by sharing an experience with a hurricane.
When the wind clipped
the whitecaps, and the flags
came down before they shredded,
we knew it was no nor’easter.
The Blue Nose ferry stayed
on course, west out of Yarmouth,
while 100 miles of fog
on the Bay blew away.
The Captain let us stand
on the starboard bridge
and scan a jagged range.
Shearwaters skimmed the peaks
while storm petrels hunted valleys
that slowly filled with gold.
Alberto blew out in the Atlantic.
We came back to earth
that for days might tip and sway
and cast us back to sea.
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 (c) 1998 by Warren Woessner, whose book of poetry, “Clear All the Rest of the Way” is forthcoming from The Backwaters Press. Reprinted from “Iris Rising,” BkMk Press of UMKC, 1998, with permission of the author. Introduction copyright (c) 2006 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.
by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate, 2004-2006The subdivision; it’s all around us. Here Nancy Botkin of Indiana presents a telling picture of life in such a neighborhood, the parents downstairs in their stultifying dailiness, the children enjoying their youth under the eaves before the passing years force them to join the adults.
All the roofs sloped at the same angle.The distance between the houses was the same.There were so many feet from each front doorto the curb. My father mowed the lawnstraight up and down and then diagonally.And then he lined up beer bottles on the kitchen table.We knew them only in summer when the airpassed through the screens. The neighbor girlstalked to us across the great divide: attic windowto attic window. We started with our names.Our whispers wobbled along a tightrope,and below was the rest of our lives.
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 (c) 2006 by Nancy Botkin. Reprinted from “Poetry East,” Spring, 2006, by permission of the author, whose full-length book of poems, “Parts That Were Once Whole,” is available from Mayapple Press, 2007. Introduction copyright (c) 2006 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.
Today’s Red Wheelbarrow:
Anybody who’s ever done it knows there is more to it than just shaking a pan around in the murky water… definitely an art… and done artfully, and can be very rewarding. Most people today who are panning for gold aren’t generally doing it for the money… which is another reason to consider it an art. But really I just want it to be the RW today, and I’m trying to justify my selection. Nevermind. I don’t have to do that, do I? What I have to do is write. So I’ll do that.
Want to learn more about what on earth the Red Wheelbarrow is all about? Go here: Red Wheelbarrow Meta.
Today’s Red Wheelbarrow:
It’s “Lost Arts Found” week here at the daily poem. I’ve taken the easy way out so far with quiltmaking and knitting… can I dig a little deeper? I’ll have to go sit in the wayback machine for a minute… aha, I’ll take one from my “master drawing techniques” class oh so very long ago, and come to you with the art of silverpoint. Literally, silverpoint is drawing with silver… a meticulous method of drawing that is not always so very rewarding… but a quick search on the interwebs shows us that the art still exists, and therefore must be due for a comeback… and if not a comeback, perhaps a poem. Blessings.
Want to learn more about what on earth the Red Wheelbarrow is all about? Go here: Red Wheelbarrow Meta.
Today’s Red Wheelbarrow:
It’s “Lost Arts Found” week here at the daily poem. A major one? Knitting. Are you a knitter? A knit-master? A knit-whatsit? Poem us a knitting-barrow, won’t you?
Want to learn more about what on earth the Red Wheelbarrow is all about? Go here: Red Wheelbarrow Meta.
Today’s Red Wheelbarrow:
The “lost arts” are not lost anymore, so therefore let’s celebrate with a week of them, beginning with the subject of quiltmaking.
Want to learn more about what on earth the Red Wheelbarrow is all about? Go here: Red Wheelbarrow Meta.
Today’s Red Wheelbarrow:
Near the Rocket bakery where I sometimes write, there’s a yoga studio, and when a yoga class is released, a great number of the attendies make their way into the Rocket (I don’t think it’s strictly a women’s studio, but I haven’t seen any men coming out of there, so in my heart they are the yoga ladies). So it occured to me this morning that there was a great deal of meat on the bones of that idea, and that I could and should write about the yoga ladies, and though you haven’t experienced these specific women, I bet you can use your imagination for more than a place to put your lid and come up with something glorious.
Want to learn more about what on earth the Red Wheelbarrow is all about? Go here: Red Wheelbarrow Meta.
Smart people like you probably already know about Poetry Daily. But it took me awhile to realize here at the daily poem that there was the Poetry Daily serving up the goods, er, daily (unlike the daily poem, which is more like a nod to the fact that there is such a thing as a daily poem rather than an actual poem every day, so that a site such as Poetry Daily really takes the pressure off a blog like the Daily Poem, you know?… ). Today? Carl Phillips.
So, now that I have you thoroughly flummoxed, I present a link: Poetry Daily.
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