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American Life in
Poetry: A Column by Ted Kooser,
Poet Laureate of the United States,
2004-2006.
American Life in Poetry provides newspapers and online
publications with a free weekly column featuring contemporary
American poems. The sole mission of this project is to promote
poetry; American Life in Poetry seeks to create a vigorous presence
for poetry in our culture.
The current month's poetry is provided
below. For an archive of past poems click here:
American Life in Poetry.
April 2007: Week 1
Week 2
Week 3 Week 4
Week 1
American
Life in Poetry: Column 105
BY TED KOOSER, U.S.
POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I've talked often in this column about how poetry can hold a mirror
up to life, and I'm especially fond of poems that hold those mirrors
up to our most ordinary activities, showing them at their best and
brightest. Here Ruth Moose hangs out some laundry and, in an
instant, an everyday chore that might have seemed to us to be quite
plain is fresh and lovely.
Laundry
All our life
so much laundry;
each day's doing or not
comes clean,
flows off and away
to blend with other sins
of this world. Each day
begins in new skin,
blessed by the elements
charged to take us
out again to do or undo
what's been assigned.
From socks to shirts
the selves we shed
lift off the line
as if they own
a life apart
from the one we offer.
There is joy in clean laundry.
All is forgiven in water, sun
and air. We offer our day's deeds
to the blue-eyed sky, with soap and prayer,
our arms up, then lowered in supplication.
Reprinted from
"Making the Bed," Main Street Rag Press, 2004, by permission of the
author. Copyright © 1995 by Ruth Moose, whose latest book of poetry,
"The Sleepwalker," Main Street Rag, due out in 2007. This weekly
column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of
Congress, and the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.
Week 2
American
Life in Poetry: Column 106
BY TED KOOSER,
U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
By describing the relocation of the moles which ravaged her yard,
Washington poet Judith Kitchen presents an experience that resonates
beyond the simple details, and suggests that children can learn
important lessons through observation of the natural world.
Catching the Moles
First we tamp down the ridges
that criss-cross the yard
then wait for the ground
to move again.
I hold the shoe box,
you, the trowel.
When I give you the signal
you dig in behind
and flip forward.
Out he pops into daylight,
blind velvet.
We nudge him into the box,
carry him down the hill.
Four times we've done it.
The children worry.
Have we let them all go
at the very same spot?
Will they find each other?
We can't be sure ourselves,
only just beginning to learn
the fragile rules of uprooting.
Poem copyright ©
1986 by Judith Kitchen, whose most recent book is the novel, "The
House on Eccles Road," Graywolf Press, 2004. Reprinted from
"Perennials," Anhinga Press, 1986, with permission of the author.
This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The
Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University
of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited
poetry.
Week 3
American Life in
Poetry: Column 107
BY TED KOOSER, U.S.
POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Naomi Shihab Nye is one of my favorite poets. She lives in San
Antonio, Texas, and travels widely, an ambassador for poetry. Here
she captures a lovely moment from her childhood.
Supple Cord
My brother, in his small white bed,
held one end.
I tugged the other
to signal I was still awake.
We could have spoken,
could have sung
to one another,
we were in the same room
for five years,
but the soft cord
with its little frayed ends
connected us
in the dark,
gave comfort
even if we had been bickering
all day.
When he fell asleep first
and his end of the cord
dropped to the floor,
I missed him terribly,
though I could hear his even breath
and we had such long and separate lives
ahead.
Reprinted from "A MAZE ME," Greenwillow, 2005, by permission of the
author. Copyright Naomi Shihab Nye, whose most recent book of poetry
is "You and Yours," BOA Editions, Ltd., 2005. This weekly column is
supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the
Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This
column does not accept unsolicited poetry.
Week 4
American Life in
Poetry: Column 108
BY TED KOOSER, U.S.
POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Houdini never gets far from the news. There's always a movie coming
out, or a book, and every other magician has to face comparison to
the legendary master. Here the California poet, Kay Ryan,
encapsulates the man and says something wise about celebrity.
Houdini
Each escape
involved some art,
some hokum, and
at least a brief
incomprehensible
exchange between
the man and metal
during which the
chains were not
so much broken
as he and they
blended. At the
end of each such
mix he had to
extract himself. It
was the hardest
part to get right
routinely: breaking
back into the
same Houdini.
Poem copyright © 2004 by Kay Ryan, whose most recent book of poetry
is "The Niagara River," Grove Press, 2005. Reprinted from "Poetry,"
November, 2004, with permission of the author. This weekly column is
supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the
Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This
column does not accept unsolicited poetry.
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