As the title implies, the featured collection gives readers Margolis’s understanding of what it means to be happy. However, by no means should this indicate that every single poem will bring a smile to your face.
In the scope of her book, Kunin is not simply taking us on a journey of language, but holds our hand as we crawl into a soft, cushioned space of the poet’s authenticity and vulnerability.
Gratitude to all of you for checking-in./ Calling me in the middle of the night,/ to see if I’m not trying to get some sleep,/ sleeping on my roof. The water’s that high/ in some places in my brave state/ of Vermont. Where the rivulets rise…
Most of the time the dark waters will rise,/ then fall into sun and birdsong, everything/ glistening, vivid as broken glass in fresh mud…
Swooping down, a righteous vulture/ Points his talons at “Cancel Culture”/ Enough! he squawks, leave the pastard be/ Let wrongs live on in history…
The Rose of Sharon/ and the Trumpet Vine/ are always the last to leaf out./ Everything else is green —/ has been since the end of April.
For Peter Lebenbaum and his long service with the Counseling Service of Addison County.
I was going to explain why I’m repelled by children/ who have been taught to say all the right things/ about Edward Hopper’s night café—some paintings/ need to be earned and this is one of them— but here,/ instead, are three stanzas about Iceland.
It was twilight all day./ Sometimes the smallest things weigh us down,/ small stones that we can’t help/ admiring and palming.
Middlebury College Axinn Center for the Humanities will present “The Weight of History” a poetry reading and talk by Tracy K. Smith on March 15, at 4:30 p.m., in Wilson Hall of McCullough Student Center.
A Poet, In a Field Near Robert Frost’s Cabin, Lifts Enormous Boulders with his Mind
All that is beautiful/ that slips away––/ a December night/ that before was November/ and September and before that,/ July when days were blue silver/ waves we swam through.
The storm before Christmas and all through the house/ No appliance was whirring, not even a mouse
If I remember the lake yesterday, the tanager/ deep in the woods, it feels like a memory/ lost in a series of new ones, each singular event/ simply a tanager in a tree.
When Jack Mayer is walking alone on the Long Trail, he carries a small notebook — a place to jot down whatever comes to his mind.
