Vox Populi
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Laure-Anne Bosselaar: This Longing for Him
This longing for him, the choke in my throat again —
enough, enough.
I throw a coat over my shoulders, close the door
behind me, softly, as if afraid to wake another ache.
Another dawn. Fists in my pockets, I head east
into this street of bungalows
as if I belonged here, among the hundred windows
lit one by one,
among the first joggers & their dogs, past garages
yawning out cars into the busyness of day.
This longing again for him, who — that June —
did not wait for light, turned his face
away from it, to quietly enter silence.
Copyright 2024. An earlier version of this poem appeared in These Many Rooms (Four Way, 2019).
Laure-Anne Bosselaar is a Belgian-American poet, translator, professor, and former poet laureate of Santa Barbara, California. She is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently, Lately: New and Selected Poems (Sungold, 2024) These Many Rooms (Four Way Books, 2019). Her collection, Small Gods of Grief (BOA Editions), won the 2001 Isabella Gardner Prize for Poetry. A New Hunger (Ausable Press 2008) was an American Library Association Notable Book in 2008. She is the author of Artémis, a collection of French poems, published in Belgium.
Vox Populi 
Powerful and beautiful, Laure-Anne! Thank you for your poetry. My new book (The Intersection of Poetry and Jungian Analysis through Metaphor) is now in final production by Rowman and Littlefield. In that book, I included one poem by you and another by him. I will happily send the book to you as soon as it is ready. It will be with me at my presentation at a congress in Zurich, Switzerland, in a few months and in other countries where that congress will be presented (Denmark, Uruguay, UK, Lithuania, Australia, China, France, USA. Bises, Regina.
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Thank you, Regina, and bravo that your book will soon be out and it will delight many, I’m sure — and thank you, too, for using one of my poems! I’m impatient to read it. My very best to you, L.A.
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So striking and true. And that final turn leaves me breathless.
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So striking and true–and that final turn leaves me breathless. Wonderful to hear you read this today on the Verse-Virtual reading.
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“as if afraid to wake another ache.” Oh, yes.
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Beautiful, Laure-Anne. Sad I can’t make your reading today with Michael. Enjoy x
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Very beautiful, Laure-Anne.
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How can one’s heart not ache, too, when reading this? Such soft images leading to that final silence… Thank you for sharing this with us. I’m looking forward to the morning reading!
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Absolutely gorgeous.
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Yes, thank you, Sean. And to Michael and HIS ardent poems — & his tireless, generous editorial & inspiring editorial offerings! What joy it will be to read with Michael this late morning (here on the Pacific Central coast) and afternoon, all the way in Florida on the other side of this vast continent!
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It’s a poem worth rereading, a light for many windows.
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Yes, it is. Thanks, John.
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Strikes me hard…..powerful.
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No one else writes with the quiet passionate precision of Laure-Anne.
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The grace of this woman! Her images, her lines are so right they cut straight to the heart.
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Yes, they do!
Yes, they do!
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Achingly beautiful; our loves define us. Thank you Laure-Anne.
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Our loves define us… perfect.
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Such a stunning, heart-breaking contrast:
“garages/ yawning out cars into the busyness of day”…and then the longing for someone who
“did not wait for light, turned his face/ away from it, to quietly enter silence.”
Hungry for more, I’m hoping to attend part of the reading this afternoon, before a previous commitment takes me away….
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Thanks, Louise! I agree that Laure-Anne’s poem is perfect in its craft and sentiment.
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We read and celebrate the heart that crafts these poems risen out of and beyond loss. They are as insatiable as any true love and underpin the faith in living we must all finally choose to be in this world.
There is a jacaranda tree at the far end (from my life) of the continent, sometimes in the shade—sometimes in the fog where matters of the heart are received, settled, and spoken each day. May it always be so.
PS I so look forward to your and Michael’s reading together! What a rare delight for an early Saturday
Afternoon.
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Thanks, Sean!
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