Tag Archives: poetry

Reading

"The Copper Beech"

American Life in Poetry: Column 066

By Ted Kooser,
U.S. poet laureate, 2004-2006
Some of the most telling poetry being written in our country today has to do with the smallest and briefest of pleasures. Here Marie Howe of New York captures a magical moment: sitting in the shelter of a leafy tree with the rain falling all around.

The Copper Beech

Immense, entirely itself,
it wore that yard like a dress,

with limbs low enough for me to enter it
and climb the crooked ladder to where

I could lean against the trunk and practice being alone.
One day, I heard the sound before I saw it, rain fell
darkening the sidewalk.

Sitting close to the center, not very high in the branches,
I heard it hitting the high leaves, and I was happy,

watching it happen without it happening to me.

Reprinted from “What the Living Do,” W. W. Norton & Co., 1997. Copyright (c) 1997 by Marie Howe. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Family matters

Where I’m From

A lovely poem called “Where I’m From” by George Ella Lyons has turned into a meme, somewhat. Here are a bunch of different versions at Finding Joy in the Morning. And here is mine:

Where I’m From
with apologies to George Ella Lyons

I am from mountains, from Nintendo and well-worn pages.

I am from the humble home
with the crooked floors and
snakes in the walls.

I am from the dogwood, the ginseng.

I am from laughter and sturdy legs,
from Richard Maurice and Ellen Kaye.

I am from the hot tempers and soft hearts.

From “your brother has the prettiest eyes”
and “you look just like your mama.”

I am from “Lord watch over us and bless us
with health, safety and happiness amen.”

I’m from North Carolina and Michigan
and Belgium and Ireland and England
and cookie pudding and fried taters.

From the finger my grandmother lost,
and sunflowers as high as I could see
and my mother falling through
the Michigan ice.

I am from the old house, a box in the closet,
a thousand faceless names in my
family tree.

Reading

"The Dancer"

American Life in Poetry: Column 063
By Ted Kooser
U.S. poet laureate, 2004-2006
Remember those Degas paintings of the ballet dancers? Here is a similar figure study, in muted color, but in this instance made of words, not pigment. As this poem by David Tucker closes, I can feel myself holding my breath as if to help the dancer hold her position.

The Dancer
Class is over, the teacher
and the pianist gone,
but one dancer
in a pale blue
leotard stays
to practice alone without music,
turning grand jetes
through the haze of late afternoon.
Her eyes are focused
on the balancing point
no one else sees
as she spins in this quiet
made of mirrors and light–
a blue rose on a nail–
then stops and lifts
her arms in an oval pause
and leans out
a little more, a little more,
there, in slow motion
upon the air.

Reprinted from the 2005 Bakeless Prize winner “Late for Work”, by David Tucker, Houghton Mifflin, 2006, by permission of the author. “The Dancer” first appeared in “Visions International”, No. 65, 2001. Copyright (c) 2001 by David Tucker. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.