People's poetry

Jacqueline Jackson presents

Audio By Carbonatix

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Untitled Document maydaypoem #1
(perhaps by John Knoepfle)

happy happy
first of may
screwing outside
begins today
© Jacqueline Jackson 2007
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.

Ted Kooser served as the U.S. Poet Laureate from 2004-2006. For more information, go to www.americanlifeinpoetry.org.

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