Poets’ Corner
Book Release: Clara’s Bees by Catharine Savage Brosman
We are excited to announce the release of Catharine Savage Brosman’s new collection of poems, Clara’s Bees, on our literary imprint, Little Gidding Press. In this expansive collection of poems, Catharine Savage Brosman surveys life in contemporary New York, wartime France, and medieval Europe. Along with imaginative scope, these poems attend to the particulars of…
An Encounter
I’ve been away all day, and coming home— I can’t believe it—all the kids are leaping To tell me what’s transpired in my absence. They’re at the store together, five of them Propped in the shopping cart or following it, Their mother slowly leading down the aisle, To get the toilet paper, bread, a…
LATE LIGHT IN CHATTANOOGA
I was born in a shadow country Of roofless temples smudged with smoke, Where even the roadside shrines Sat jilted, their chintzy dioramas Strung with strands of christmas lights That lit the paths of small tin soldiers Shouldering their guns into darkness To hollow drums and distant music. O sing, cicada, sing… I grew up…
Milton
He moved the candle closer to the paper Whose clouded words escaped his failing sight. Blind anger rose again. He dropped the taper, Thought flickered low, and rage put out the light. Despair stood near at hand to shake its head, And bitterness reminded him that slaves Stood as unworthy masters in the stead Of…
Register
He took his place within the check-out line, A loaf of bread, some milk, and batteries Cradled against the paunch beneath his ribs. His eyes rest vaguely where they fell on rows Of chocolate, gum, and mints that lined the counter. But, just behind, came some sharp click of tongue— Briefer, but otherwise much like…
Sonnet for the Third of August
(the day Wallace Stevens wrote a sonnet at his day job) Today is Surreptitious Sonnet Day, feast of St. Wallace in the poets’ church. Writing on paper, I will not betray my brief defection to the sharp-eyed search of bosses and their minions. (I do NOT trust the blonde secretary on my right). To tell…
Spoiled
Once Emma knew someone who thought it funny that she had no brothers or sisters. Having grown up with many siblings herself, the woman liked to say that Emma must have been awfully spoiled when she was little. Because to be an only child meant to be spoiled. It was inevitable. Somehow she never realized…
The Monk
This winter I have let my beard hang like litter from my face, and boiled tea, and for a time, looked on and longed to be taken alongside the fields by undisturbed whiteness. There I would mind the cold for its finch-thick sill of bone, and watch last week’s split ash burn like the debris…
The Rector’s Wife
She was wont to laugh, then not at all. She stood at the door dripping rain, He waved her in, he was on a call — a parishioner ringing to complain. She was wont to laugh, then not at all. “They think you are of ill repute and lacking in propriety that you would wear…
Estuary
But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar . . . —Matthew Arnold I’d wait each day for tide to turn as it released the locks imprisoning the oyster-boats moored at the creek’s old docks, and watch the sand bars disappear when morning’s current ran, so knob-kneed piles beneath the pier across our…