January 2012
1 post
American Life in Poetry: Column 357
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
The title of this beautiful poem by Edward Hirsch contradicts the poem, which is indeed a prayer. Hirsch lives in New York and is president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, one of our country’s most distinguished cultural endowments.
I Was Never Able To Pray
Wheel me down to the shore where the lighthouse was abandoned and the moon...
November 2011
4 posts
American Life in Poetry: Column 349
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Here’s a fine poem about a cricket by Catherine Tufariello, who lives in Indiana. I especially admire the way in which she uses rhyme without it ever taking control of the poetry, the way rhyme can.
The Cricket in the Sump
He falls abruptly silent when we fling A basket down or bang the dryer shut, But soon takes up again where he left off. Swept...
American Life in Poetry: Column 348
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
When we’re on all fours in a garden, planting or weeding, we’re as close to our ancient ancestors as we’re going to get. Here, while he works in the dirt, Richard Levine feels the sacred looking over his shoulder.
Believe This
All morning, doing the hard, root-wrestling work of turning a yard from the wild to a gardener’s will, I heard a bird...
American Life in Poetry: Column 347
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
My mother and her sisters were experts at using faint praise, and “Bless her heart” was a very useful tool for them. Richard Newman, of St. Louis, does a great job here of showing us how far that praise can be stretched.
Bless Their Hearts
At Steak ‘n Shake I learned that if you add “Bless their hearts” after their names, you can say whatever you...
American Life in Poetry: Column 346
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
It seems to me that most poems are set in spring or summer, and I was pleased to discover this one by Molly Fisk, a Californian, set in cold midwinter.
Winter Sun
How valuable it is in these short days, threading through empty maple branches, the lacy-needled sugar pines. Its glint off sheets of ice tells the story of Death’s brightness, her...
October 2011
6 posts
American Life in Poetry: Column 345
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Somebody tells somebody else about something that happened. It comes naturally. We’ve been doing that for as long as our species has been around. But to elevate an anecdote into art requires more than just relating an incident. It requires a talent for pacing, for detail, for persuasion, and more. Here David Black, of Virginia, tells a good story in...
American Life in Poetry: Column 344
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I love listening to shop talk, to overhear people talking about their work. Their speech is not only rich with the colorful names of tools and processes, but it’s also full of resignation. A job is, after all, a job. Here’s a poem by Jorge Evans of Minnesota, who’s done some hard work.
Overtime
Fair season and we’re tent pitching on holy grounds...
American Life in Poetry: Column 343
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Most of us have received the delayed news of the death of a family member or friend, and perhaps have reflected on lost opportunities. Here’s a fine poem by J. T. Ledbetter, who lives in California but grew up on the Great Plains.
Crossing Shoal Creek
The letter said you died on your tractor crossing Shoal Creek. There were no pictures to help the...
American Life in Poetry: Column 342 →
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Your high school English teacher made an effort to teach you and your bored classmates about sonnets, which have specific patterns of rhyme, and he or she used as an example a great poem by Keats or Shelley, about some heroic subject. To counter the memory of those long and probably tedious hours, I offer you this perfectly made sonnet by Roy...
American Life in Poetry: Column 342
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Your high school English teacher made an effort to teach you and your bored classmates about sonnets, which have specific patterns of rhyme, and he or she used as an example a great poem by Keats or Shelley, about some heroic subject. To counter the memory of those long and probably tedious hours, I offer you this perfectly made sonnet by Roy Scheele,...
American Life in Poetry: Column 341
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Here’s a poem of mixed feelings by Don Thompson to help us launch October. Thompson lives in Buttonwillow, California, which sounds like the name of a town in a children’s story, don’t you think?
October
I used to think the land had something to say to us, back when wildflowers would come right up to your hand as if they were tame.
Sooner or later,...
September 2011
7 posts
Reader list and schedule for Ella Fest updated!
Hello everyone!
Check out the updated schedule for Ella Fest readings at http://soft-exposure.net/post/10826085407/more-readings-at-ella-fest-this-weekend-update.
We’ll each have about 10 minutes to read between the musicians’ sets, with the exception of the Yoga Demonstration (instead of a musician playing) going on before my reading. I’ll probably take part in that, so come...
More Readings at Ella Fest This Weekend! UPDATE
Hello again Friends of Soft Exposure! Thanks to everyone who came out to last night’s reading and open mic at Infusion. I had a wonderful time! You can catch more literary goodness at Ella Fest going on this weekend. Check out the web site at http://ellamusicfest.org/ or at http://www.facebook.com/ellamusicfest.org. Artists have tickets available to sell, $10 for one day and $20 for two, if...
Tonight! Soft Exposure features Naomi Butterfield
Hello Friends of Soft Exposure!
Come out tomorrow night to Infusion Tea for another night of open mic goodness and featured writer readings! That’s right — our feature for the night will be your host, Naomi Butterfield. We’ll meet at our usual spot at Infusion Tea, 1600 Edgewater Drive, Orlando. The reading will start at 7:00 and run until 9:00, and we’ll have our usual...
American Life in Poetry: Column 340
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I like birds, and poems about birds, and several years ago I co-edited an anthology of bird poems called The Poets Guide to the Birds. I wish Judith Harris had written this lovely description of a mockingbird in time for us to include it, but it’s brand new. Harris lives in Washington, D.C.
Mockingbird
I can hear him, now, even in darkness, a...
American Life in Poetry: Column 339
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
People have been learning to cook since our ancient ancestors discovered fire, and most of us learn from somebody who knows how. I love this little poem by Daniel Nyikos of Utah, for its contemporary take on accepting directions from an elder, from two elders in this instance.
Potato Soup
I set up my computer and webcam in the kitchen so I can ask...
American Life in Poetry: Column 338
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
We all hope our children’s lives will be better than our own, and invest in that hope in a variety of ways. Here Michael Ryan of California compares what we can provide for them with what we can’t.
Girls’ Middle School Orchestra
They’re all dressed up in carmine floor-length velvet gowns, their upswirled hair festooned with matching ribbons: their...
American Life in Poetry: Column 337
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
South Dakota poet Leo Dangel has written some of the best and truest poems about rural life that I’m aware of. Here’s a fine one about a chance discovery.
Behind the Plow
I look in the turned sod for an iron bolt that fell from the plow frame and find instead an arrowhead with delicate, chipped edges, still sharp, not much larger than a woman’s...
August 2011
5 posts
American Life in Poetry: Column 336
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
This week’s column is by Ladan Osman, who is originally from Somalia but who now lives in Chicago. I like “Tonight” for the way it looks with clear eyes at one of the rough edges of American life, then greets us with a hopeful wave.
Tonight
Tonight is a drunk man, his dirty shirt.
There is no couple chatting by the recycling bins, offering to help...
American Life in Poetry: Column 335
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I’ve always been fascinated by miniatures of all kinds, the little glass animals I played with as a boy, electric trains, dollhouses, and I think it’s because I can feel that I’m in complete control. Everything is right in its place, and I’m the one who put it there. Here’s a poem by Kay Mullen, who lives in Washington, about the art of bonsai.
...
American Life in Poetry: Column 334
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Those of us who have gone back home to attend a reunion of classmates may have felt the strangeness of being a vaguely familiar person among others who, too, seem vaguely familiar. Dana Gioia, who served the country for four years as the Chair of the National Endowment for the Arts, is an accomplished poet and a noted advocate for poetry.
Reunion
...
American Life in Poetry: Column 333
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Here is a lovely poem by Robert Cording, a poet who lives in Connecticut, which shows us a fresh new way of looking at something commonplace. That’s the kind of valuable service a poet can provide.
Old Houses
Year after year after year I have come to love slowly
how old houses hold themselves—
before November’s drizzled rain or the refreshing...
American Life in Poetry: Column 332
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I’d guess that nearly everyone is aware that time seems to speed up as we age. Whenever I say that something happened ten years ago, my wife reminds me that it was twenty. Here’s a poem about time by the distinguished Maryland poet, Linda Pastan.
Counting Backwards
How did I get so old, I wonder, contemplating my 67th birthday. Dyslexia smiles:...
July 2011
5 posts
Tonight, Soft Exposure features David W. Berner...
Hello Friends of Soft Exposure! Soft Exposure is back tonight, July 27th, for a wonderful night of literary listening and open mic wonder. Our featured writer for the evening is David W. Berner, the current writer in residence at The Kerouac House in College Park. He’ll be reading from his memoir - Accidental Lessons - and a new manuscript. Come on out for the opportunity to chat with the...
American Life in Poetry: Column 331
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
It is estimated that one out of five Americans enjoys spending time bird watching, or birding, and here’s a poem for some of those people by Kathleen M. McCann, who lives in Massachusetts. I especially like the way she captures the egret’s stealthy motion in the second stanza.
Lone Egret
Classically stagy, goose-neck elegant, river’s third eye....
American Life in Poetry: Column 330
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Humans first prized horses for their strength and speed, but we have since been captivated by their beauty, their deep eyes and mysterious silences. Here’s a poem by Robert Wrigley, who lives inIdaho, where the oldest fossilized remains of the modern horse were found.
After a Rainstorm
Because I have come to the fence at night, the horses arrive...
American Life in Poetry: Column 329
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I’ve gotten to the age at which I spend a lot of time remembering, and it’s the fragments that seem to affect me the most, fleeting glimpses into the past that leave me still reaching for something I can’t quite grasp. Here Roy Scheele, a fine Nebraska poet, perfectly captures one of those passing memories.
Produce Wagon
The heat shimmer along...
American Life in Poetry: Column 328
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
How I love poems in which there is evidence of a poet paying close attention to the world about him. Here Angelo Giambra, who lives in Florida, has been keeping an eye on the bees.
The Water Carriers
On hot days we would see them leaving the hive in swarms. June and I would watch them weave their way through the sugarberry trees toward the pond...
June 2011
5 posts
American Life in Poetry: Column 327
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Some of us have more active fantasy lives than others, but all of us have them. Here Karin Gottshall, who lives in Vermont, shares a variety of loneliness that some of our readers may have experienced.
More Lies
Sometimes I say I’m going to meet my sister at the café— even though I have no sister—just because it’s such a beautiful thing to say....
This Wednesday, Soft Exposure features Robert...
This Wednesday, June 22, Soft Exposure brings you a double header! That’s right - we’ll be listening to the wonderful works of 2 featured writers, Robert Walker and Anna Claire Hodge.
We’ll be at our usual spot, Infusion Tea in College Park, 1600 Edgewater Drive, Orlando. Come out to listen to the readings and share some of your own words with a warm and welcoming audience....
American Life in Poetry: Column 326
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I am especially fond of what we might call landscape poems, describing places, scenes. Here April Lindner, who lives in Philadelphia, paints a scene we might come upon on the back side of any great American city.
Our Lady of Perpetual Help
The burnt church up the street yawns to the sky, its empty windows edged in soot, its portals boarded up...
American Life in Poetry: Column 325
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Many of us have attempted to console friends who have recently been divorced, and though it can be a pretty hard sell, we have assured them that things will indeed be better with the passage of time. Here’s a fine poem of consolation by Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, who teaches at Penn State.
One Day
One day, you will awake from your covering and...
American Life in Poetry: Column 324
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Here’s a fine poem by my fellow Nebraskan, Barbara Schmitz, who here offers us a picture of people we’ve all observed but haven’t thought to write about.
Uniforms
It is very hot—92 today—to be wearing a stocking cap, but the adolescent swaggering through the grocery store automatic door doesn’t seem to mind; does not even appear to be perspiring....
May 2011
7 posts
American Life in Poetry: Column 323
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Joe Paddock is a Minnesota poet and he and I are, as we say in the Midwest, “of an age.” Here is a fine poem about arriving at a stage when there can be great joy in accepting life as it comes to us.
One’s Ship Comes In
I swear my way now will be to continue without plan or hope, to accept the drift of things, to shift from endless effort to joy...
This Wednesday, Soft Exposure features Lisa Pasold
Soft Exposure is back! This Wednesday, May 25th 2011, our wonderful feature Lisa Pasold will be sharing some of her latest work with us. Come on out to our usual spot, Infusion Tea in College Park, 1600 Edgewater Drive, Orlando, to listen to her reading and share some of your own words with a warm and welcoming audience. The reading and open mic will run from 7 to 9, and the open mic sign-up sheet...
American Life in Poetry: Column 322
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Cathy Smith Bowers was recently appointed poet laureate of North Carolina, and I want to celebrate her appointment by showing you one of her lovely poems, a peaceful poem about a peaceful thing.
Peace Lilies
I collect them now, it seems. Like sea-shells or old thimbles. One for Father. One for
Mother. Two for my sweet brothers. Odd how...
American Life in Poetry: Column 321
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
For me, the most worthwhile poetry is that which reaches out and connects with a great number of people, and this one, by Joe Mills of North Carolina, does just that. Every parent gets questions like the one at the center of this poem.
How You Know
How do you know if it’s love? she asks, and I think if you have to ask, it’s not, but I know...
American Life in Poetry: Column 320
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
When I was a little boy, the fear of polio hung over my summers, keeping me away from the swimming pool. Atomic energy was then in its infancy. It had defeated Japan and seemed to be America’s friend. Jehanne Dubrow, who lives and teaches in Maryland, is much younger than I, and she grew up under the fearsome cloud of what atomic energy was to...
American Life in Poetry: Column 319
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Here’s a poem in which eight-year-old Ava Schicke, who lives in Omaha, Nebraska, tells us just who she is and what she thinks.
I am
I am a daughter and a sister. I wonder when I will die. I hear the warm weather coming. I see stars in the day. I want to learn my whole ballet dance. I am a daughter and a sister.
I pretend to be a teacher at...