for Darren A grooved disc, a sliver of diamond, and the music rises; His darkened eyes, the ribbon of birth Cut: and the influential squawl Thrilling the air —within which breath is drawn, Within which the race is to the quickest, Within which the race stories itself— rises;…
(Ecco Press, $6.95) This poetry, intelligent and delicately worded, full of hard appraisals, has as its objects and experiences the domestic and traditional: gray '43 pennies, landscapes and eyesight, local wisdom, family history and neighborhood, marriage and children, friends and poetry itself. Her subject is her own vision, intelligent and emotional, in which an exciting…
A round in three parts I When I was a child I had a governess whom I despised. We slept in the same room. She stole my dreams. I, in turn, stole coins from her leather purse. I threw them out the window. Since we lived in Canada and it was wintertime, there was snow…
Listen, those of you with bones, To the ceremonies of attention. My first son, age six, hit his brother, age three, With a baseball bat. When he had gone to bed I asked him, severely, to remember When he got hit with a baseball bat Two years ago. He started to cry And when I…
James Wright. To a Blossoming Pear Tree. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977. 62 pp. $7.95. Edward Kamau Brathwaite. Mother Poem. Oxford University Press, 1977. 117 pp. $6.50. Barry Goldensohn. Uncarving the Block. Vermont Crossroads Press, 1977. 62 pp. No price listed. Jane Shore. Eye Level. University of Massachusetts Press, 1977. 86 pp. No price listed….
In this new town, I need to know where to buy grain, grapefruits by the case, a round of cheese. Neighbors offer a way of making sauerkraut and soap. But I mostly like the words. And those I meet who might be friends have children now full grown. I want to meet whole generations. I…
1 The last thing I remember when I was a boy In the North winter I’d line the barrels up Sixteen or eighteen abreast across the pond And back off, way off, and hone my blades and paw At the ice, then skate full on, take soaring to the air And land on barrel…
MASTHEAD Directors DeWitt Henry Peter O'Malley Coordinating Editor for This Issue Ellen Bryant Voigt Editor for Criticism Lorrie Goldensohn CONTRIBUTORS TOM ABSHER was one of four winners of the 1978 Nation-YMHA Discovery Awards. He lives in Vermont. ANGELA BALL is completing a Ph.D. at University of Denver. JANE BARNES edits Dark Horse. MICHAEL BENEDIKT is…
There is always something outside that wants in: again tonight, I cannot back the car out of the garage for the animals that gather. I think of moving back to the city, where not once did I choke on the spray of wild skunk on my path to the dryer, not once did I intercept…
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