[New-Poetry] Pulitzer

[Anny Ballardini]

I think, and hope, and am sure it is not her most representative, there is an implicit criticism by the OldMole in the choice of this particular poem, or?
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Linda Sue Grimes 
  To: opus40-01 at opus40.org ; NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &Views 
  Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2007 10:59 AM
  Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Pulitzer


  Don't you find that "Flounder" poem a bit contrived?

  lsg
    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: opus40-01 at opus40.org 
    To: opus40-01 at opus40.org ; NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views 
    Sent: Monday, April 16, 2007 5:01 PM
    Subject: [New-Poetry] Pulitzer


      2007 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry to Native Guard by Natasha Trethewey.



      Here's one from her first collection, Domestic Work.

            Flounder   
           

           
Here, she said, put this on your head. 

She handed me a hat. 

you 'bout as white as your dad, 

and you gone stay like that. 

Aunt Sugar rolled her nylons down 

around each bony ankle, 

and I rolled down my white knee socks 

letting my thin legs dangle, 

circling them just above water 

and silver backs of minnows 

flitting here then there between 

the sun spots and the shadows. 

This is how you hold the pole

to cast the line out straight. 

Now put that worm on your hook, 

throw it out and wait. 

She sat spitting tobacco juice 

into a coffee cup. 

Hunkered down when she felt the bite, 

jerked the pole straight up 

reeling and tugging hard at the fish 

that wriggled and tried to fight back. 

A flounder, she said, and you can tell 

'cause one of its sides is black. 

The other is white, she said. 

It landed with a thump. 

I stood there watching that fish flip-flop, 

switch sides with every jump. 






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