Thursday, February 28, 2008

Addendum II

Stephen Dunn's Everything Else in the World has been my new before-bed poetry pick. He's got a gift for subtle enjambment and analogies that don't really hit until the next morning.


I also forgot a couple things about college life. I forgot the way coffee and cigarettes hollow out your stomach, putting pressure on your bladder and bowels. I forgot how much fun it can be to really get a good line in your writing. A line you'd like to read aloud. A line you know the reader's gonna raise her eyebrows at.


I'll leave you with some Dunn, a poet with far more grace than most of the Old, White, Plain Language poets writing these days (Collins, Kooser, etc.).


Salvation

Finally, I gave up on obeisance,
and refused to welcome
either retribution or the tease

of sunny days. As for the can't-be-
seen, the sum-of-all-details,
the One--oh when it came

to salvation I was only sure
I needed to be spared
someone else's version of it.

The small prayers I devised
had in them the hard sounds
of split and frost.

In the beaconless dark
I wanted them to speak
as if it made sense to speak

to what isn't there.
I wanted them to startle
by how little they asked.