Poetry

poolpoem #4 all summer I swim with excreta bass perch pike excreta turtle frog snail excreta algae excreta bacteria excreta gull guano a white splotch on the water like latex paint with gently fraying edges cow pats from the pasture flushed into the lake in a storm and down at the beach little kid pee […]

kidquotepoem #1 I don’t like walking to school with betsy with betsy it’s always hurryhurryhurry but when I’m with cappy her walks nice and slow © Jacqueline Jackson 2006

When I complained about some of the tedious jobs I had as a boy, my mother would tell me, Ted, all work is honorable. In this poem, Don Welch gives us a man who’s been fixing barbed wire fences all his life. At the Edge of Town Hard to know which is more gnarled, the […]

Contrary to the glamorized accounts we often read about the lives of single women, Amy Fleury, a native of Kansas, presents us with a realistic, affirmative picture. Her poem playfully presents her life as serendipitous, yet she doesn’t shy away from acknowledging loneliness. At Twenty-Eight It seems I get by on more luck than sense, […]

parisweddingpoem #2 in the days after the nuptials why go right home again when there’s the glory of sainte-chapelle the eiffel tower an exclamation point against the sky the cluny’s unicorn the musée of musical instruments’ boggling octobass where you must stand on a ladder to play it then contemplating the effluent of a great city […]

angerpoem #gazillion and one if that pit bull had torn out her throat instead of her ear that little eight-year-old would be dead now as it is she’s scarred for life inside and out they shot the dog we can’t impeach or even censure the pit bull in washington who’s torn out thousands on thousands […]

Midwestern poet Richard Newman traces the imaginary life of coins as a connection between people. The coins — seemingly of little value — become a ceremonial and communal currency. Coins My change: a nickel caked with finger grime; two nicked quarters not long for this life, worth more for keeping dead eyes shut than bus […]

A worm in an apple, a maggot in a bone, a person in the world. What might seem an odd assortment of creatures is beautifully interrelated by the Massachusetts poet Pat Schneider. Her poem suggests that each living thing is richly awake to its own particular, limited world. There Is Another Way There is another […]

parisweddingpoem #1 quel evénement my ravissante petite fille in a cloud of organza the mari très élegant in his silken flowered vest shiny black dress shoes the mayor resplendent in tricolored sash ceremony as snazzy as at a church then five courses or was it six at the restaurant prive caviar appetizer fois gras poisson with […]

aroundtownpoem #10 our campus is a little eden joannie is its goddess it’s here my lines were going to end after a few words about the fragrant linden aisle bluestem grass purple coneflowers prairie dropseed joe pye weed with a few dandelions thrown in as well and how blissful to have a job whose purpose […]

This poem was among several penned by local writer Barb Olson about the tornadoes that tore through the Springfield area on March 12. After the Tornado, March 2006 A storm came from out around Curran and Loami, east past Parkway Point and hit the Wabash Corner hard. Twister or straight winds, whatever it was, tore […]

Writing and reading poetry, we are invited to join with others in celebrating life — even the ordinary, daily pleasures. Here Seattle poet and physician Peter Pereira offers a simple meal. A Pot of Red Lentils simmers on the kitchen stove. All afternoon dense kernels surrender to the fertile juices, their tender bellies swelling with […]