Every Saturday morning I read Ted Kooser's poetry column, American Life in Poetry, in our local newspaper, the Marshall Independent. According to their website, "American Life in Poetry provides newspapers and online publications with a free weekly column featuring contemporary American poems. The sole mission of this project is to promote poetry: American Life in Poetry seeks to create a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture."
Ted Kooser initiated this weekly column when he served as U.S. Poet Laureate from 2004-2006, and he has kept it going ever since. It is available free to online websites and blog if you register on their website, so I'll be posting it from time to time. This week's column features Connie Wanek, one of Kooser's favorite poems, and one of mine too.
American Life in Poetry: Column 308
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Connie Wanek is one of my favorite poets. She lives in Duluth and has a keen eye for what goes on around her. Here’s a locked and loaded scene from rural America.
Mysterious Neighbors
Country people rise early
as their distant lights testify.
They don’t hold water in common. Each house
has a personal source, like a bank account,
a stone vault. Some share eggs,
some share expertise,
and some won’t even wave.
A walk for the mail elevates the heart rate.
Last November I saw a woman down the road
walk out to her mailbox dressed in blaze orange
cap to boot, a cautious soul.
Bullets can’t read her No Trespassing sign.
Strange to think they’re in the air
like lead bees with a fatal sting.
Our neighbor across the road sits in his kitchen
with his rifle handy and the window open.
You never know when. Once
he shot a trophy with his barrel resting on the sill.
He’s in his seventies, born here, joined the Navy,
came back. Hard work never hurt a man
until suddenly he was another broken tool.
His silhouette against the dawn
droops as though drought-stricken, each step
deliberate, down the driveway to his black mailbox,
prying it open. Checking a trap.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2010 by Connie Wanek whose most recent book of poetry is “On
Speaking Terms,” Copper Canyon Press, 2010. Reprinted from New Ohio Review, No. 7, Spring 2010, by
permission of Connie Wanek and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2011 by The Poetry Foundation.
The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the
Library of Congress from 2004-2006.
Ted Kooser initiated this weekly column when he served as U.S. Poet Laureate from 2004-2006, and he has kept it going ever since. It is available free to online websites and blog if you register on their website, so I'll be posting it from time to time. This week's column features Connie Wanek, one of Kooser's favorite poems, and one of mine too.
American Life in Poetry: Column 308
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Connie Wanek is one of my favorite poets. She lives in Duluth and has a keen eye for what goes on around her. Here’s a locked and loaded scene from rural America.
Mysterious Neighbors
Country people rise early
as their distant lights testify.
They don’t hold water in common. Each house
has a personal source, like a bank account,
a stone vault. Some share eggs,
some share expertise,
and some won’t even wave.
A walk for the mail elevates the heart rate.
Last November I saw a woman down the road
walk out to her mailbox dressed in blaze orange
cap to boot, a cautious soul.
Bullets can’t read her No Trespassing sign.
Strange to think they’re in the air
like lead bees with a fatal sting.
Our neighbor across the road sits in his kitchen
with his rifle handy and the window open.
You never know when. Once
he shot a trophy with his barrel resting on the sill.
He’s in his seventies, born here, joined the Navy,
came back. Hard work never hurt a man
until suddenly he was another broken tool.
His silhouette against the dawn
droops as though drought-stricken, each step
deliberate, down the driveway to his black mailbox,
prying it open. Checking a trap.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2010 by Connie Wanek whose most recent book of poetry is “On
Speaking Terms,” Copper Canyon Press, 2010. Reprinted from New Ohio Review, No. 7, Spring 2010, by
permission of Connie Wanek and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2011 by The Poetry Foundation.
The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the
Library of Congress from 2004-2006.
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