The article says that Kooser, the US Poet Laureate, has started a weekly column called American Life in Poetry, whose purpose is
to promote poetry: America Life in Poetry seeks to create a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture.What a treat! So far there have been 38 weeks of poetry columns and I have 36 weeks to read. I love our wind chime on the back porch. The 37th week had this poem by Shirley Buettner:
The Wind Chimes
Two wind chimes,
one brass and prone to anger,
one with the throat of an angel,
swing from my porch eave,
sing with the storm.
Last year I lived five months
under that shrill choir,
boxing your house, crowding books
into crates, from some pages
your own voice crying.
Some days the chimes raged.
Some days they hung still.
They fretted when I dug up
the lily I gave you in April,
blooming, strangely, in fall.
Together, they scolded me
when I counted pennies you left
in each can, cup, and drawer,
when I rechecked the closets
for remnants of you.
The last day, the house empty,
resonant with space, the two chimes
had nothing to toll for.
I walked out, took them down,
carried our mute spirits home.
From "Thorns," published by Juniper Press, 1995. Copyright © 1995 by Shirley Buettner, and reprinted 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.
UPDATE: Ted Kooser has a new book out: THE POETRY HOME REPAIR MANUAL: PRACTICAL ADVICE FOR BEGINNING POETS
Related Posts (on one page):
- "Content Matters"
- American Life in Poetry
