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maybirthdaypoem #1
birthing a poem
the
sort I write anyway
is like a pregnancy
can’t always tell
when
the knocking up came
or even whodunnit
but it grows
slowly
starts to kick finally swims
the canal is or is not
a bonny
babe needs a spank
maybe later plastic surgery
sometimes it’s a
burp the
belly growls and it erupts
now and then it does
burst
from the brow like
athena but usually with
questionable
wisdom
sometimes it’s just a lump
in the gut not going
nowhere
hardly worth the strain
© Jacqueline Jackson 2007
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.
Ted Kooser served as the U.S. Poet Laureate from
2004-2006. For more information, go to www.americanlifeinpoetry.org.
This article appears in May 3-9, 2007.
