Category: Poems I Admire

Old Photographs

Sarah Russell4 Comments

Gabeba Baderoon is a South African poet who teaches at Penn State in Women’s Studies and African Studies.  I love to go to her readings.  They are always evenings of insight and passion.  This poem is from her newest book of poetry.  You can learn more about Gabeba through this great article about her.

Old Photographs

On my desk is a photograph of you
taken by the woman who loved you then.

In some photos her shadow falls
in the foreground.  In this one,
her body is not that far from yours.

Did you hold your head that way
because she loved it?

She is not invisible, not
my enemy, nor even the past.
I think I love the things she loved.

Of all your old photographs, I wanted
this one for its becoming.  I think
you were starting to turn your head a little,
your eyes looking slightly to the side.

Was this the beginning of leaving?

– Gabeba Baderoon
  Previously published in A Hundred Silences

 

The Quilters of Gee’s Bend

Sarah Russell7 Comments

I first found Alarie Tennille’s work when I read her poem “The Quilters of Gee’s Bend” in Goodreads.  “Quilters” won the Goodreads contest that month and also received a Pushcart nomination.  Although I’ve read many of Alarie’s poems now, “Quilters” remains one of my favorites.  More information about Alarie’s poetry is on her website.

The Quilters of Gee’s Bend

Seems like that old river tied
itself in a knot just to keep
black folks there at Gee’s
Bend while time and fortune
swept on by.

And Master Pettway gave
those folks his name, but stripped
everything else he could. Left
just scraps, but they were used to that.

So those hands that hardly
needed something else to do
unraveled their worn-out
world. Pieced together
remnants of Africa
and raggedy dreams
to make something new.

Let dress tails dance
with britches—heat from
the cotton fields pressed
deep in their seams.
So tired of plowed furrows,
they let their stitches bend
now and then just like
that river. Nothing perfect,
yet God was in the details.
And the quilters called that
making do and visiting
and keeping warm and pulling
up memories each night,
till one day they were told—
we call that art.

— Alarie Tennille
     First published in Poetry East
     Republished in Running Counterclockwise

National Poetry Month

Sarah Russell9 Comments

To celebrate National Poetry Month, I’ll share my favorite poems — the ones I return to and always find something new.  I hope you enjoy them too.

The first is by my friend Steve Deutsch who writes a satirical political blog that’s worth a look.  This poem originally appeared in Weatherings, an anthology produced by Future Cycle Press on homelessness, aging, and our planet.

Flotilla

You left behind.
one half a jelly donut,
stale as last Wednesday;
some clothing, moth-eaten,
mildewed; two shoes,
one black, one brown,
with newsprint for the soles.
You left behind a paper sack
of winter warmth, and poetry
by Whitman, Poe and Crane,
well-fingered and browned in age.

You walked into the river
and left behind four dollars
and eighteen cents, which I
have spent on coffee
and a banana nut muffin,
that crumbled in its freshness.

Your poetry; penned
in your perfect prep school hand,
was stuffed inside two newish socks
atop the brown and laceless shoe.
It is unnervingly good,
but I can use the socks.
I crumpled your words in their freshness,
and set them to sail upon the river,
page by remarkable page.

Steve Deutsch

The Weight

One drunken night he lay on the coach road and she lay beside him.

Sarah Russell15 Comments

“The Weight” is by my friend Ryan Stone who lives in Melbourne, Australia.  More of his fine poetry can be found at Days of Stone.

One drunken night, he lay on the coach road
and she lay beside him. He pictured a truck
descending – wobbling around corners,
gaining momentum. They spoke about crushes,

first kisses. He told her of an older woman
who’d stolen a thing he couldn’t replace.
He tried to describe the weight of lost things.
She listened until he stopped,
until I stopped

hiding behind he. I felt small,
watching the cosmos churn
while I lay on the coach road
one summer night, speaking
of big things
and nothing.

Ryan Stone
First published in Algebra of Owls