[New-Poetry] Fw: American Life in Poetry: Column 140

[TheOldMole]

This would read so much better as prose.

Anny Ballardini wrote:
>
>>
>> American Life in Poetry: Column 140
>>
>> BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
>>
> poem by Steven Schneider>
>>
>> Chanukah Lights Tonight
>>
>> Our annual prairie Chanukah party--
>> latkes, kugel, cherry blintzes.
>> Friends arrive from nearby towns
>> and dance the twist to "Chanukah Lights Tonight,"
>> spin like a dreidel to a klezmer hit.
>>
>> The candles flicker in the window.
>> Outside, ponderosa pines are tied in red bows.
>> If you squint,
>> the neighbors' Christmas lights
>> look like the Omaha skyline.
>>
>> The smell of oil is in the air.
>> We drift off to childhood
>> where we spent our gelt
>> on baseball cards and matinees,
>> cream sodas and potato knishes.
>>
>> No delis in our neighborhood,
>> only the wind howling over the crushed corn stalks.
>> Inside, we try to sweep the darkness out,
>> waiting for the Messiah to knock,
>> wanting to know if he can join the party.
>>
>>
>>
>> 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. Reprinted from "Prairie Air Show," Talking River 
>> Publications, 2000, by permission of Steven Schneider. Poem copyright 
>> (c) 2000 by Steven Schneider. Introduction copyright (c) 2007 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.  We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
>>
>> ******************************
>>
>> 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. 
>> There are no costs for reprinting the columns; we do require that you 
>> register your publication here and that the text of the column be 
>> reproduced without alteration.
>>
>
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-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

The moral is this: in American verse,
The better you are, the pay is worse.
  --Corey Ford