[New-Poetry] Don Welch chosen by Ted Kooser

[Anny Ballardini]

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American Life in Poetry: Column 201

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

by Don Welch

At 14

To be shy,
to lower your eyes
after making a greeting.

to know
wherever you go
you'll be called on,

to fear
whoever you're near
will ask you,

to wear
the softer sides of the air
in rooms filled with angers,

your ship
always docked
in transparent slips

whose wharves
are sheerer than membranes.


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 (c)2008 by Don Welch. Reprinted from
"When Memory Gives Dust a Face," by Don Welch, published by
Lewis-Clark Press, 2008, by permission of Don Welch and the publisher.
Introduction copyright (c) 2009 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.

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-- 
Anny Ballardini
http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/
http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome
http://www.moriapoetry.com/ebooks.html
I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing
star!
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