[New-Poetry] Kooser selects Jean Nordhaus

[Anny Ballardini]

Welcome to American Life in Poetry. For information on permissions and
usage, or to download a PDF version of the column, visit
www.americanlifeinpoetry.org.



******************************



American Life in Poetry: Column 224



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



Was Always Leaving by Jean Nordhaus





I was always leaving, I was

about to get up and go, I was

on my way, not sure where.

Somewhere else. Not here.

Nothing here was good enough.



It would be better there, where I

was going. Not sure how or why.

The dome I cowered under

would be raised, and I would be released

into my true life. I would meet there



the ones I was destined to meet.

They would make an opening for me

among the flutes and boulders,

and I would be taken up. That this

might be a form of death



did not occur to me. I only know

that something held me back,

a doubt, a debt, a face I could not

leave behind. When the door

fell open, I did not go through.





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 Jean Nordhaus, whose most recent
book of poems is "Innocence," Ohio State University Press, 2006. Poem
reprinted from "The Gettysburg Review," Vol. 21, no. 4, Winter, 2008, by
permission of Jean Nordhaus 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.



******************************



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.



To discontinue your subscription to American Life in Poetry, please reply to
this e-mail with the subject line 'unsubscribe.'






-- 
Anny Ballardini
http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/
http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome
http://www.lulu.com/content/5806078
http://www.moriapoetry.com/ebooks.html
I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing
star!
Friedrich Nietzsche
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/pipermail/new-poetry/attachments/20090706/c13aa713/attachment.html