Vox Populi
A curated webspace for Poetry, Politics, and Nature with over 6,000,000 visitors since 2014 and over 9,000 archived posts.
Carolyne Wright | Ghazal: Mid-Teens
Dr. King in Lincoln’s marble presence at fourteen.
I have a dream! rang in my premonitions at fourteen.
“The poet Roethke’s dead,” my English teacher said in home room.
I read his “Elegy for Jane…” and trembled, at fourteen.
The Flying Horseshoe Drill Team! Our serpentines
Thrilled crowds at Northwest horse shows at fourteen.
The Boeing daughters on hunters, bay and roan,
I watched them sail over jumper courses at fourteen.
The Supremes glittered from my tiny radio at dawn
KJR Seattle! under my covers at fourteen.
The Boeing girls swept horse shows on hunters of their own.
I mucked stalls for riding lessons at fourteen.
My favorite rent horse sold, the drill team circled down.
I won my first and last blue ribbons at fourteen.
***
Malcolm X’s steely eyes stared down the nation. At fifteen
On TV, he drilled me through black-framed glasses at fifteen.
My first boyfriend cornered me in shadows at the drive-in.
Dear Bob! First kiss in his Pontiac at fifteen.
“Movie next week?” he asked. “I’d love to . . .” (see the film, I mean).
He heard I love you—romance’s first miscues at fifteen.
Malcolm after Mecca, in gun-sights of that dream—
Marked man with a wife, and girls not yet fifteen.
Bob begged me to run away—to Coeur d’Alene?
I begged my folks to ground me: saved by a curfew at fifteen!
Dylan glowered at Town Hall, on stage, alone—
“Masters of War.” That spotlight made me shiver at fifteen.
Dylan’s “Visions of Johanna” kept me up past dawn.
I sat at Joan’s feet onstage, “Rust and Roses” at fifteen.
***
Roethke’s “Dolor” sifted through my studies at sixteen.
Rituals of textbooks and desk lamps at sixteen.
What peace for Malcolm’s daughters? Their father slain,
Their Night of Destiny a thousand years. At sixteen
Dylan at Newport went electric: “Like a Rolling Stone.”
I unplugged those amplifiers at sixteen.
Something was happening in that decade’s smoky room,
But I didn’t know what it was, did I? at sixteen.
My restless dreams and wakeful nights began—
At 3 a.m. I stalked down the hall. “You’re just sixteen,”
My father sighed—awake, too, in the living room.
He had to get up earlier than I did, at sixteen.
“The world’s work is done by tired people, hon.”
Malcolm, Martin, and Maurice—an early lesson at sixteen.
~~~~
Copyright 2026 Carolyne Wright
Carolyne Wright’s most recent books are Masquerade, a memoir in poetry (Lost Horse Press, 2021); and This Dream the World: New & Selected Poems (Lost Horse, 2017), whose title poem received a Pushcart Prize and appeared in The Best American Poetry 2009.
Discover more from Vox Populi
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Oh, that’s just a dandy ghazal.
My favorite bit:
Bob begged me to run away—to Coeur d’Alene?
I begged my folks to ground me: saved by a curfew at fifteen!
LikeLike
she is great, isn’t she?
LikeLike
How deftly Carolyne uses the ghazal — (thank you very dear and very much missed Agha Shahid Ali for bringing it to the American poetry world) — and how fluidly she weaves so many cultural and personal moments through that repetitive structure!
LikeLike
yes, she does use the ghazal well. In her hands, it becomes a narrative form.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nicely touches on 60s culture with Roethke and Dylan, and more. Roethke has been such an influence on poetry in the US. His students included James Wright, Carolyn Kizer, Jack Gilbert (all in his MFA class together), Richard Hugo and many others. I can see undertones of their work In Carolyne’s poem. James Wright found translation to be a powerful meditative tool for a poet. Perhaps Carolyne Wright finds that true with her translating work, too?
LikeLiked by 1 person
A dance through memories, a return to teenage mind, the seriousness, the innocence, Baez, Dylan, Supremes, death, war Takes me back with wonder and questions of what really was and what might have been if
LikeLiked by 1 person
yes, we experienced life through music, didn’t we?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Carolyn’s craft is superb; or should I say Supreme? There are both an ache and a claim in her poem. “Elegy for Jane” and “Dolor” also spoke to teenage me. It’s touching to be reminded of the poems and my own youthful susceptibility to them.
LikeLiked by 2 people
“An ache and a claim” what a wonderful juxtaposition. Thank you, Luray.
LikeLike
Carolyne has a gift for using the ghazal, a challenging fixed form, while making the poem sound as if it is part of a rapid-fire conversation, a lyrical explanation as it were. She captures the feelings of the teenage girl while holding onto her adult point of view. Brilliant!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Carolyne’s ghazal is not only increasingly interesting and expansive in its movement but opens up to a touching and empathetic moment with her father near the end. What a treat. Roberrt Stewart
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thanks, Robert! You have an editor’s eye…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Such a terrific use of the form.
LikeLiked by 2 people
isn’t it?
LikeLiked by 1 person
A masterful use of the ghazal form and such a wonderful weaving of the personal with the political. Thank you, Carolyne Wright. Thank you, Michael, for another fine pairing of poetry and prose today.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thanks, Christine. You are a ‘double threat’ as they say: you have the mind of an engineer and the heart of a poet. So glad you are one of us!
LikeLiked by 2 people
i love every moment of these poems, and the trip they take me down on my own memory lane. They stop short of Janis Ian’s ballad (only by a year, most certainly not in poetics) but move full beyond my childhood experience and pastoral setting of work and aloneness. These are lovely—i treasure each of them and spread them like a veil upon my past.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Sean, it is wonderful to see you back here! We’ve missed your lyrical brilliance. The barn is built, I take it?
LikeLiked by 1 person