'We are a tribe of eyes that look upward'
Alberto Rios is a highly acclaimed American poet who lives and teaches in Arizona. I found this poem of community and peace in Poetry of Presence: An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems, published by Grayson Books of West Hartford, Connecticut. The most recent book by Alberto Rios is A Small Story about the Sky, Copper Canyon Press.
WE ARE OF A TRIBE
by Alberto Rios
We plant seeds ...
27th December 2019
'Their harness bells dulled by the cold, their breath steam, all while we were dreaming'
I've been asked if I believe in ghosts, and my answer is, 'Well, now, there's very little fun in NOT believing in ghosts.' Here's a poem by Austin Smith, who lives in Illinois, about being encouraged by a father to believe in something that becomes real in the telling.
WHITE LIE
by Austin...
27th December 2019
'You bending down with your tall mouth to make the softest landing on mine'
Here's a poem about something that each of us receives, though only once. If you didn't get yours written into a poem, you've got it put away somewhere. Wyatt Townley lives in Kansas, and 'First Kiss'...
11th December 2019
'The woods look as if they might have a thousand years ago'
Sometimes a poem can seem to be like a jeweller's setting, in which a gemlike image is presented. This one, by Chase Twichell, who lives in upstate New York, has one of those perfect gems of observati...
3rd December 2019
'Heading home to the sound of the last few trout splashing'
A wise and loving father fishing with his two sons. Norman Maclean wrote about a time like that in his book A River Runs Through It, and here's a poem by Todd Davis that catches much the same feeling ...
26th November 2019
'You are sedimentary, rock-solid cousin earth'
Minnesota has many fine writers, gathered together by a deep and trusting affection for one another. Freya Manfred has been an important part of that community for her entire life, having been brought...
20th November 2019
'I like remembering my brother when he was young, decades before anything went wrong'
I highly recommend a new anthology called Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness and Connection, edited by James Crews and published by Green Writers Press in Brattleboro, Vermont. Here's just one of t...
14th November 2019
'The sidewalk shaded by cranked-out awnings: butchers, bakeries, shoe repair shops'
We've published several poems by Washington DC poet Judith Harris, who writes beautifully about her Jewish heritage. Bruno Bettelheim, writing about fairy tales, remarked on the closeness of the relat...
5th November 2019
'While these old bones are still working, my darling, let's dance'
How about a light-footed Irish reel before winter sets in, before the rest of our lives sets in? Here's a poem by Barbara Crooker, who lives in Pennsylvania. Her most recent collection of poems is Th...
30th October 2019
'One more hour to get the words right; one more chance for the heart in hiding'
Here's a poem by Holly J Hughes, who lives and writes in Washington state, about finding joy in what's before us. I found it in Poetry of Presence: An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems, published by Gray...
27th October 2019
'We trade our hungers for hearth, for the clank and hiss of warmth'
One of poetry's most important tools is sensory imagery, and the following poem, by Christie Towers of Massachusetts, brings in pleasurable smells, tastes, and sounds to evoke a rich experience starti...
16th October 2019
'That river of sky, neck stretched toward heaven, maybe beyond'
Wallace Stevens, the great modernist poet, wrote about setting a jar down in a wild place, and how by doing so he organised that space around the jar. Here's Marilyn Dorf, a Nebraska poet, using a sin...
10th October 2019
'It could only belong to him for fifteen minutes'
I'd guess that at least every other person reading this column did at one time, as a child, carry home some animal that he or she wouldn't be able to keep. Here's Connie Wanek, who lives in New Mexico...
3rd October 2019
'Those tokens I harvested from her deathbed are more like the pearl'
All of us know people who wouldn't wear an article of clothing that had ever before been touched, let alone worn, by somebody else, and others who could care less. As I write this column I'm wearing a...
26th September 2019
'Things always dwindling to just the two of us, a crumpled cigarette, a distant car'
Although this poem by Patrick Phillips, from American Poetry Review, is dedicated to a person we don't know, 'For Paul' conveys feelings we've all experienced. We don't need to know who "Paul" is. The...
17th September 2019
'He tapped once at the ash, which began to drift into that moment already behind us'
If at times your world seems flat and uninteresting, I recommend making a cardboard viewfinder with a postage-stamp sized window. Then look at what's around you through that. I think you'll be pleased...
15th September 2019
'The rapid clatter giving place to the slow click'
We reprint poems by living Americans, about American life, but sometimes we need to remind ourselves of the many beautiful and moving poems written by American poets no longer with us. Robert Francis ...
2nd September 2019
'My face remained nearly dry, as was the gas tank when he finally returned'
I once wrote of Marge Saiser's poetry that she writes better poems about love than anyone I know. In this poem the love is standing off to the side, looking on, but it's there. Marge Saiser lives in N...
27th August 2019
'The grass, the empty sky, the wish for water'
Let's hope that by the time this column appears all fires in California have been extinguished. I wanted to offer you a poem that shows us what that beautiful but arid state can look like before it's ...
24th August 2019
'I listened to the sound of southern women's voices expressing disbelief'
There are so many delightful poems by Faith Shearin that it can be difficult to select just one to show you. This one is from her sixth book, Darwin's Daughter, published in 2017 by Stephen F. Austin ...
19th August 2019
'We all lose something, though that day I hadn't lost a thing'
Lately I've been worried about the welfare of a young groundhog who lives under our front deck. His back legs won't support him and he drags them behind. This poem has been a good lesson for me. That ...
4th August 2019
'I must have brought their home inside for fuel, heating my small house'
This column has often emphasised the importance of poetry that notices what's right under our noses, and this poem by David Mason, the former poet laureate of Colorado, who is currently living in Tasm...
26th July 2019
'The garden still waiting for whatever might come'
If you've ever been released at last from a lengthy illness you know that the world can look different, strangely illuminated. Here's a poem about that kind of awakening by Judith Harris, who lives in...
17th July 2019
'The shout across the garden to say another flower is about to break'
The following poem by James Davis May, published in 32 Poems Magazine, has a sentence I'd like to underline, because it states just what I look for in the poems I choose for this column: "We praise th...
1st July 2019
'May your twin thoughts spiral upward like leafy vines'
I am often asked if I know of a good poem to be read at a wedding, and here's one by James Bertolino, from his new and selected poems, Ravenous Bliss. Bertolino lives in Washington state and I have be...
28th June 2019
'Their hooks sunk deep into the bare skin of a sweating back'
I’m afraid that if I’d asked my grandparents what the past was like they’d say it was “hard,” and that would be it. But Megan Arlett is privileged to have a grandmother who knows how to enchant us wit...
19th June 2019
'Decide whose cry it is tonight, which girl to lift, to whisper or hum, which lullaby'
Here’s a fine poem about a loving, attentive father, by Elise Hempel, who lives in Illinois. Notice how deftly she’s placed her rhymes so that we scarcely notice them as the words flow on. Ms Hempel’s...
13th June 2019
'Each to his task in the quiet of the long familiar'
When I was a nasty little kid I once made fun of a girl in my school because her father worked cutting up dead animals at a rendering plant.My mother sat me down and said: "Ted, all work is honourable...
10th June 2019
'A decision any mother might make upon guessing the intentions of the state'
Austin Smith lives in rural Illinois and is an acute observer of the world at hand.This poem is from his book Flyover Country, published by Princeton University Press.
CAT MOVING KITTENS
by...
2nd June 2019
'It is lost, hiding somewhere out back'
I don't suppose there are many of our younger readers who have started to worry about the possibility of memory loss, but I'd guess almost everybody over fifty does. Peter Schneider lives in Massachus...
28th May 2019
'The dogs, I note, are smaller, the owners less ferocious'
Ibbetson Street is a journal that comes out twice a year and does a fine job selecting its poems. I like this one by Kenneth Lee, a gynaecological pathologist in Boston, whose most recent book is Grav...
14th May 2019
She meant to go places in it: camp in its back seat and cook on its stove
How many of our mothers set aside what they wanted to do with their lives and chose instead to make good lives for us? This poem is from Faith Shearin's sixth book, Darwin's Daughter, published in 201...
10th May 2019
'The real story always begins at the third door'
I was very sorry to read that the literary journal Field, with a long history of publishing the finest of American poetry, was ceasing publication. All good things must come to an end. Here's a poem f...
30th April 2019
'Even then they looked alive, survivors with no sickness to survive'
There's a lot of very wordy poetry these days, but here is a poem of only around 120 words in which every choice is necessary. I recently accepted another poem by Caitlin Doyle, who lives in Ohio, and...
23rd April 2019
'A racquet whisked through the air like a wand'
There's nothing that can't be a good subject for a poem. The hard part is to capture something in such a way that it becomes engaging and meaningful. Here's a poem from the summer 2018 issue of Rattle...
17th April 2019
Today's my turn to hold the joy, hers the sorrow
I like this poem for the way it portrays the manner in which we study the behaviour of others and project our own experiences onto their lives. It's the second poem we've published by Jeanie Greensfel...
11th April 2019
'We ran down the aisles between snapping sheets that wanted to put us in our place'
Ezra Pound commanded America's poets to "make it new". And here's a good example. Has there ever been another poem written, and written beautifully, about children playing among laundry drying on a li...
6th April 2019
'Maybe the ghostly face in the window staring back at him'
Perhaps you've seen miniature portraits enclosed in lockets. Well, here's a little portrait enclosed in the pages of a chapbook by Pennsylvania poet Paul Martin called Mourning Dove, from the Comstock...
28th March 2019
'The storm looked alive, yellow and green at the fringes'
Is it worse to live in a city where you can't see a big storm coming until it's right on top of you, or to be out on the plains where you can see it coming for almost too long? I like this long look a...
22nd March 2019
'What if I just sat there? she asks. It's a free country, I tell her'
One of the many challenges in life is in knowing where you're supposed to sit. I slid into the wrong pew at a funeral 40 years ago and still smart from the hard looks I got. Here's a church pew poem b...
14th March 2019
'Her lower lashes curl in toward a view that's hers alone'
Pauletta Hansel lives in Cincinnati, and today's poem is from her book Palindrome, from Dos Madres Press in Loveland, Ohio. It's a collection of poems about her mother's dementia, and although there h...
4th March 2019
'An imagination problem like the time friends said we must be very happy'
One of my many peculiarities is a fascination with deserted places, especially old houses, and I've written far too many poems about them. But that doesn't mean that I don't love it when others take o...
25th February 2019
'In April I will walk out across the warming grass and right the chair'
John Stanizzi is a poet living in Connecticut, whose work we've published before. His most recent collection of poems is Chants, from Cervena Barva Press. Our column has published a number of poems ab...
19th February 2019
'There we are in our lives as if we had all time'
Marge Saiser, who lives in Nebraska, is a fine and a very lucky poet. With the passing of each year her poems have gotten stronger and deeper. That's an enviable direction for a writer. This poem was ...
18th February 2019
'In here, the water moves behind the glass'
Liz Ahl was once a very talented graduate student in our creative writing programme at the University of Nebraska, but she's long since moved on to teach at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire....
8th February 2019
'All week, I ran a fever that wouldn't break'
Caitlin Doyle, who lives in Ohio, writes haunting, memorable poetry about the familiar and the strange. Her poetry is a fine example of what I call strategic artistry, as if her words have been carefu...
28th January 2019
'Staring down silver and crystal that would dare move'
There are so many fine poems in Richard Robbins' new and selected poems, Body Turn to Rain, published by LynxHouse Press, that I had a difficult time choosing one to show you. This one, though, with i...
24th January 2019
'An Iago lie of pernicious intent, layer upon layer of dark deceit'
I've had my eye on Americans' obsessions for more than 70 years and I can't remember a time when public lying got as much attention as it does today. Attention yes, but consequences, no. I recently ha...
16th January 2019
'I pawed away from the trunk, fumbled, and took my first step toward not returning'
A child at a school bus stop, on his way out into the world, a fine subject for a fine poem by Dante Di Stefano, who lives in Endwell, New York. Might we all live out our days in a place called Endwel...
8th January 2019
'Prophecy, the warning of what yet's to break out'
The glaciers that flattened my part of the world made their exit aeons ago, but in Alaska, where Peggy Shumaker lives and writes, they're just now beginning to turn back. Only deep in a Nebraska snowb...
1st January 2019
