Great poem, entitled "Static," posted on The Writer's Almanac yesterday by Barton Sutter, Southwest Minnesota State University graduate.
The speaker's voice in this poem captures that post-breakup ambivalence many of us have experienced--wistful and nostalgic for the good aspects of a past love but also clear-eyed about all the "static." I admire Bart's use of slant rhyme or off-rhyme couplets. The rhymes are a bit "off," not true rhymes, just as the couple almost clicked but not quite--too much static. Form and content work well in tandem here, something I focus on in my own poems and encourage my writing students to consider as well.
At SMSU, we're proud of Bart for many reasons, but especially because he is the only Minnesota author to win the Minnesota Book Award in three different categories:
1992 for Fiction (My Father's War and Other Stories, Viking, 1991, U of MN 2000)
1994 for Poetry (The Book of Names: New and Selected Poems, BOA Editions, 1993)
1999 for Non-fiction (Cold Comfort: Life at the Top of the Map, U of MN, 1998)
Bart has a collection of haiku, Chester Creek Ravine, coming out this spring from Nodin Press. I love reading haiku and look forward to buying a copy of Bart's new book.
The speaker's voice in this poem captures that post-breakup ambivalence many of us have experienced--wistful and nostalgic for the good aspects of a past love but also clear-eyed about all the "static." I admire Bart's use of slant rhyme or off-rhyme couplets. The rhymes are a bit "off," not true rhymes, just as the couple almost clicked but not quite--too much static. Form and content work well in tandem here, something I focus on in my own poems and encourage my writing students to consider as well.
At SMSU, we're proud of Bart for many reasons, but especially because he is the only Minnesota author to win the Minnesota Book Award in three different categories:
1992 for Fiction (My Father's War and Other Stories, Viking, 1991, U of MN 2000)
1994 for Poetry (The Book of Names: New and Selected Poems, BOA Editions, 1993)
1999 for Non-fiction (Cold Comfort: Life at the Top of the Map, U of MN, 1998)
Bart has a collection of haiku, Chester Creek Ravine, coming out this spring from Nodin Press. I love reading haiku and look forward to buying a copy of Bart's new book.
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