Vox Populi
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Barbara Crooker: Diorama
A shoe box set on its side.
The knotty pine paneling brown.
A small nuclear family
in early American chairs.
Macaroni and cheese in the oven,
the crust thickening on a loaf
of banana bread. The den
an altar to the black & white TV.
There’s a fireplace in the living room,
but no smoke in the chimney, and no one
listens to the hi-fi, where records,
shiny black platters, once spun, music
threading from the scratchy needle.
Mother stands by the stove, waiting
to serve. Father has tamped down
his anger for the night. The children
are quiet, waiting for the future.
From Slow Wreckage by Barbara Crooker (Grayson, 2024). Included in Vox Populi by permission of the author.
Barbara Crooker is the author of twelve chapbooks and ten full-length books of poetry. Her many awards include the WB Yeats Society of New York Award, the Thomas Merton Poetry of the Sacred Award, and three Pennsylvania Council fellowships in literature.
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Always wonderful Barbara Crooker poem
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Thanks, Donna!
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Barbara: I’m sorry this has taken so long, somehow my response didn’t go through twice yesterday. We were delivering 6 2-year old heifers to a back-country ranch, dragging our stock trailer (my son driving), down a bumpy shell road as I wrote—maybe the phone didn’t gather in my intentions, but this (you’ve written) is fine ekphrasis of our bygone Art of living and I so like your poem!
Are you aware of those, now classic, Museum Installations of Ed Kienholz from I suppose the 50’s-60’s—much more acidic and ironic, but in the genre, certainly iconic of “Americana?”
I’m sure there’s one at the Whitney in NYC.
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Thanks, Sean, for those very kind words. I’m not aware of Ed Kienholz’s work, but I may be in NY for a week in the fall, and if the trip happens I will be sure to go to the Whitney and look it up–
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Such simple language. Clear imagery. Perfect tone. For some reason I thought of Wyeth while I read the poem. I can almost “see” what he would have done with those finely chosen details.
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Wyeth. That’s interesting.
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Thank you so very much! Interesting that you see Wyeth; I love his work–
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Beautiful–how you capture my family all those years ago. Thank you.
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Thanks, Bill!
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