James Wright: A Note Left in Jimmy Leonard’s Shack
Near the dry river’s water-mark we found
Your brother Minnegan,
Flopped like a fish against the muddy ground.
Michael Simms: Rhythm Benders | The Musicality of American Poetry
A poem is rooted in the rhythms of pulse, breath and movement.
Bill Knott: A Sudden Departure
A sudden raisinstorm broke
Raisins falling everywhere pellmell.
The occasion uniqued my head, I thought
If this can happen raisins raining
Upon persons paining why I can leave anytime
Without feeling shame
Michael Simms: Only You
I woke this morning remembering the room we had in Paris which looked out on the Seine.
Video: The Lost Words Blessing
Enter the wild with care, my love
And speak the things you see
Gary Margolis: I was Living in a Poem
Lines so plain I didn’t know, at first,
I was living in a poem.
James Wright: Trying to Pray
This time, I have left my body behind me, crying
In its dark thorns.
James Wright: Northern Pike
We prayed for the game warden’s blindness.
We prayed for the road home.
We ate the fish.
James Wright: A Blessing
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
James Wright: Depressed by a Book of Bad Poetry, I Walk Toward an Unused Pasture and Invite the Insects to Join Me
The old grasshoppers
Are tired, they leap heavily now,
Their thighs are burdened.
I want to hear them, they have clear sounds to make.
Michael Simms: Dogsbody to the Muse
Sometimes it’s painful to watch a group of poets trying to work a room as if they were politicians. The AWP conference, as the wag put it, is comprised of 15,000 introverts pretending to be extroverts.
Michael Simms: On the Spectrum with Garrison Keillor
Many of the issues people have had with Keillor’s behavior through the years may have been caused by his autism.
James Wright: Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota
Down the ravine behind the empty house,
The cowbells follow one another
Into the distances of the afternoon.
James Wright: To a Blossoming Pear Tree
Beautiful natural blossoms,
Pure delicate body,
You stand without trembling.
Little mist of fallen starlight,
Perfect, beyond my reach
Vox Populi 