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"Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota" by James Wright was the model poem for this issue.
Wright's short poem is primarily a description of a country setting. He sees a farm, viewed from a hammock. It is a pleasant, relaxing scene.
The poem is a single stanza, free verse, in simple language. It has 13 lines - one short of a sonnet. But like a sonnet, it has a "turn" - a quick one in its final line. It is almost like the poem is a sonnet without the final concluding heroic couplet.That final line is a surprise ending - a twist that seems to undo the previous 12 lines.
My reading of the poem is that the person in the hammock is a visitor to Duffy's farm. It is not where he lives and different from where he does live. The scene around him is pleasant and the visitor's conclusion comes from that scene, but in an unexpected way.
For our November issue, we were looking for poems with a surprise ending, a twist, or a poem that ends in a way that flips the poem's meaning.
James Wright was born and spent his childhood in Martins Ferry, Ohio. Neither of his parents had received more than an eighth grade education. Wright suffered a nervous breakdown in 1943, and he graduated a year late from high school, in 1946. After graduating from high school, Wright enlisted in the U.S. Army and participated in the occupation of Japan. He then spent a year in Vienna on a Fulbright Fellowship. He obtained a master's and a Ph.D. at the University of Washington, studying with Theodore Roethke and Stanley Kunitz.
His poetry often deals with the disenfranchised, or the American outsider. Wright suffered from depression and bipolar mood disorders and also battled alcoholism his entire life. He experienced several nervous breakdowns, was hospitalized, and was subjected to electroshock therapy.
His 1972 Collected Poems won the Pulitzer Prize. Wright's son Franz Wright was also a poet; Franz won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2004. Together, James and Franz are the only parent/child pair to have won a Pulitzer Prize in the same category.
Wright was a lifelong smoker, and was diagnosed in late 1979 with cancer of the tongue. He died a few months later. His last book of new poems, This Journey, was published posthumously.
SLEEVES
When the mornin’ comes and it’s time for me to leave
Don’t worry ‘bout me; I got a wild card up my sleeve.
from “Easy From Now On”
by Susanna Clark and Carlene Carter
Emmylou sings these lines like a trickster
On the edge of a crossover,
Like that wild German, Emil Nolde,
Turning his back on the Blue Riders,
Like Jesus, stumbling off among the stones
Without even a crust of bread
Or a pocket to put a windfall into,
But at least
He had sleeves.
Trickster—
You’ll meet her or him again
On some other threshold,
Maybe as the worker whose job it is
To put the steering wheels on Teslas,
But who instead calls in sick
To stay home and play with his baby—
The student who cuts her botany class
To sit on a hillside,
Writing haiku in a field of rocks
And wild lupine—
Or the painter who can’t face another lecture
On brush stroke technique, perspective,
Or how to mix the perfect shade
Of cobalt blue.
Picasso himself could return
To teach this lesson,
And our trickster would wander
Into his own back yard
To stare at the stains on his neighbor’s fence.
If he sits until midnight,
The sky will turn strange and wild
As few have seen it, even in dreams.
And when he has taken it in,
He will amble out among the stars,
Filling his sleeves with color and light.
In China, they have one word which means
Either blue or green.
Rose Anna Higashi
ABOVE AND BELOW
I’m lost in a steady grief that collars me
to an unrelenting remembering of her,
one that wraps its grip on my nape
as a jailer might.
The stinging din of the shovel’s tip
meeting the hard, ancient earth
acts like sonar siting the place where
I'm scoring a hole’s perimeter,
one deep enough to contain the sadness.
But now a Chasteberry tree roots there,
with purple-green leaves and violet berries
molding the morning sun into a jailer's key,
loosening the collar.
Rob Friedman
BOOK CLUB À DEUX
DONNE’S SONGS AND SONNETS
I look at you across the table, your
beauty like polished chrome, furrowing
your brow at some line we are scanning,
eyes intense as strobes, lips reflecting light.
You reach for your glass of wine and smile,
your glow expanding across an internet
of shadows, flashing against the white walls
in ghostly photons, countless ordered bits.
Your youth, your beauty fill the room
like the sigh of a spring breeze, the depth of a
fall morning, the clarity of a wren’s call,
the smell of mown grass, stars on a cold night.
I yearn for the mingling of our minds,
our bodies, to know you until we are
one, until our souls unite, until time
itself becomes as endless as our thoughts.
You raise your head from the text,
eyes sparkling like the newest phone,
And say: “So much intensity is here.
Do men as old as you still feel such desire?”
Rob Miller
WINDOW FRAMES
from the window behind my easy chair
autumn is a distant mountain ridge
moving in front of the fireplace and looking up
birds cross the watercolor wash sky
lying on the couch
the neighbor's fence is a rail line for squirrels
and from the kitchen when I look up
from my dinner and water bowls
the window is so small that it is like a haiku
two leaves fall at once
then the window is blank sky -
everything is empty
Ken Ronkowitz
GOOD CRY
I hadn’t had one in years. I was
due. But the question was
where to have it, where to
do it? “You could do it here,”
said my therapist, taking in the tasteful
prints on the wall, the braided rug,
the upholstered sofa and chairs
with a wave of her upturned hand.
But that would feel like taking a dump
in the middle of your office, I thought
but did not say. “No,” I said, “I have to do it
alone.” “But that defeats the purpose--
a good cry is better when shared,” she said.
We both looked out the window then
at the gray day, the constipated sky.
There was a long silence. I could feel her
checking the time. It started to rain,
then changed its mind. “Our time
is up,” she said. So I went and sat in my car
and did it. And the people passed by
beneath their umbrellas. And the sidewalk
moaned. And the street lights flickered.
I felt cleansed. I felt wrung. That night,
when I told my wife about it, she said
a little ruefully, she wished it was something
we could have done together. And she wept a little.
And I wept a little with her. Which felt good.
But the one in the car was better.
Paul Hostovsky
SOMNAMBULIST
I knew a narcoleptic cook,
Who when he didn’t take his pills,
Hallucinated black robed monks
While scrubbing down the restaurant grill.
We took our constitutionals
Each day upon the city streets,
Confabulating whimsical
Yet philosophic fancies sweet.
One cloudy Saturday we strolled
From town toward the shining sea,
To contemplate a local grove
Where Monarchs held court on the trees.
The butterflies clung close in throngs
On eucalyptus and cypress,
Enveloped in a looming fog
That blurred all boundaries with us.
We barely saw the tiny wings
Ten-thousand-fold upon the limbs,
Like autumn leaves prepared to fling
Their glories to the reckless wind.
I turned to him and framed a thought,
But he spoke first. “What do you think?
“Perhaps I’m really nodding off
While leaning on the kitchen sink.”
Lee Evans
BEST FRIENDS
When we first met
I knew we would be friends
But the depth of our relationship
In years to come —
I never would have guessed
You were the one whose company
I sought when I felt down
I could talk to you about my dreams
My fears, my deepest secrets
Knowing you would not betray my confidence
Never judge or try to fix my problems
Instead, would simply listen
We loved to take long walks together
They cleared the head and fed the soul
Forest, beach or mountain top
We drank in everything we saw
Used up our nervous energy
Later, we would sit
Out on the porch or by the fire
Content to share the silence
In time, we would become soulmates
Could sense each others moods
Read each others minds
When cancer took you from me
The pain I felt was palpable
A grief some others could not understand
To them, you were a dog
To me, you were my dearest friend
Frank Kelly
OBSTRUCTED VISION
Along the Tambopata River
the Julia Butterflies alight
on the backs of turtles
to sip their tasty tears.
Salt-mad, they swoop
and settle around heavy eyes
swollen in a daze of sunlight.
Their colors flutter like flags
signaling the stubborn gladness
of a fevered desire.
Dazzled by the canny of things
that descend on wings
in the heat of an afternoon,
the turtles tilt their heads,
drowning in kisses,
blinded by butterflies
drinking tears.
The walk along the tideline
belongs to the river.
We need never be sorry for love.
Shirley McPhillips
GRAY, IN ALL HER MEEKNESS
Gray is neutrality
The only connection between black and white
A reminder that there’s no right answer
Just levels of disagreement
Gray remains aloof and isolated
Never fitting in, never standing out
Just a faded shadow or a darkened light
The disregarded crayon forever in the box
Gray shows us what hopelessness can do
How despair spreads over the skies
And casts a blanket over the sun
To bring out our sadness
Yet, in all her meekness, Gray is the only survivor
After our lives in technicolor have burnt out
Kirsty Mac Dougall
CONFUSED
It is Saturday or perhaps Sunday,
hard to tell the difference sometimes except
most Saturdays I’m mowing the lawn,
Sunday sitting in the 3rd pew from the front,
row with my family’s name engraved
on a silver plate screwed to the backrest.
By the look of the lawn, it must be Saturday
since all is neatly edged, but then it could
be Sunday and I fell asleep in church again
dreaming of sheep and blasphemy. This confusion
of days is disheartening, a sign of forgetfulness and
approaching senility, nothing to look forward to.
I’ll figure it out later, my mom just brought
In a cake for my birthday ablaze with 21 candles.
Peter A. Witt
PHOTOGRAPHING GREYHOUND PUPPIES
8 puppies were photographed
on a sheepskin rug
a panoply to capture
Their variety of color
red brindle blue fawn cow dog
black with a crest that resembled a ghost
popped off the supple cream fur beneath.
some playing some sleeping
It was tough to get good shots
you would think their winsomeness
would wear thin
Then one would pounce. Another frolic on his back while 2 kissed
After hundreds of clicks
we didn’t know what was captured
as checking would disrupt
the flow.
Nearby the owner was watching
a man on YouTube slicing watermelon
with a machete.
8 perfect slices in seconds.
Augustus Kay
TRADITION
the rain had started
thermos - check; tools - check
the ride there silent
save for the soothing sound
of tires on wet road top
and the music on low
Irene would've preferred
the hokey but fun-spirited Monster Mash
but Rob chose the haunting Autumn Leaves
the farm looked different this year
the pumpkins less spectacular
or "spooktacular" in Irene's "Halloween-nacular"
The crowd mostly rain-slickered parents
babies in faded red wagons
toddlers in clunky rubber boots
sloshing through muddy puddles
too cool teens lagging behind
some things didn't change
inside a big tent, carving stations
a predictable line at the coffee urn
tables with already picked-for-you-pumpkins,
apples, jams, pies and cider
but they always headed straight to the patch
each time, walking up and down the many rows
until they found it - "The One"
big and wide with deeply lined ribs
what Irene called "Groovy Lines"
and plenty of room for a big old grin
what Rob called "The Cheshire Factor"
their Jack-O had to be just right
not too silly; not too scary
Rob &
Irene's
Pumpkin
she sketched; he carved
then they'd place it on the top porch step
Rob worked at a weathered picnic table
using his own tools from home
taking his time
with hands not as deft
vision not as keen
as they once were
together they drove back
stopping just once
the rain had slowed
Rob carried the Jack from the car
he walked slowly
careful not to slip
then placed it down gently
Irene, meet Wilson II
also, not much of a talker
but I hope he'll do
Rob cleared away some leaves
then ran his fingers over
the etched darkened surface
of Irene's gravestone
"This Jack's got some good ribs
but you my girl, were the grooviest"
he reached for his phone
Bobby Pickett and the Crypt Kickers
began to mash
Terri J. Guttilla
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