Beth Brown Preston: Still Life with Flowers
Momma cautioned me about the dangers of an artist’s life
when in sixth grade I revealed that I wanted to write poetry.
I painted my first canvas as a high school senior:
“The Breast” — an enormous painting of my bronze right teat.
Fred Shaw: Comfort
Without warning, the busboy died
in his bed after school, the genes of his heart
finished ticking toward failure.
John Gould Fletcher: Lincoln
Like a gaunt, scraggly pine
Which lifts its head above the mournful sandhills;
And patiently, through dull years of bitter silence,
Untended and uncared for, starts to grow.
Video: Robert Wrigley reads ‘American Fear’
In this long poem about the present disfunction of American society, Robert Wrigley ‘tells all the truth, but makes it sing.’
Naomi Shihab Nye: Blood
Homeless fig, this tragedy with a terrible root
is too big for us. What flag can we wave?
I wave the flag of stone and seed,
table mat stitched in blue.
Christine Fair: Triptych
If she had a girl, she wanted her to be pretty-popular-slender-cheerleader.
She got me.
She named me Carol.
Etheridge Knight: Apology for Apostasy?
…then shall I
Sing of beaches, white in the magic sun,
And of moons and maidens at midnight.
Gary Fincke: Anniversary
“Gary, just you wait,”
My mother promised me ten thousand times,
And I did until this moment, saying
That I’ve woken, love, to some happiness
Sandy Solomon: My Friend Seems Near Tears
Look at her, so tall and beautiful
when she forgets herself, her whole body
lit with a sloppy, ungovernable brightness
Alexis Rhone Fancher: Blind Man’s Bluff
I dated a blind man in the 80s. Tall, slender, he was easy on the eyes. When I asked him what it was like not to see, he told me to imagine not breathing.
James Davis May: Hot Sex
she asks him,
resigned panic in her voice, Did you
slice one of those serranos into the guac?
Barbara Hamby: Reading Can Kill You
Yes was Da, which is so much more Yes than Yes
but with a twinge of Nyet, and it was winter, a freezing Siberian
blizzard with days that began at ten and ended at two
Jonathan Kaplan: Why is a love poem full of sex in the Bible? Readers have been struggling with the Song of Songs for 2,000 years
Feminist readings have highlighted the female character’s power, autonomy and sensuality. Conservative Christians, meanwhile, often approach the poem as an ideal expression of acceptable love between a husband and wife.
Song of Songs, Canticles 1-8
I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys[….]
As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.
