[New-Poetry] Ellen Bryant Voigt

[Anny Ballardini]

It's a beautiful poem.

On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 5:13 PM, David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu> wrote:

> Garrison Keillor informs me that it's Voigt's birthday today.
> I'm very glad to hear of her snagging the Poets' Prize.  Well deserved.
>
> Her first prose collection, *The Flexible Lyric*, is a real gem, I think,
> and I look forward to her new one.
>
> Here's a favorite poem of hers, an early piece:
>
> *For My Husband*
>
> Is it a dream,
> the way we huddle over the board,
> our fingers touching the slick button?
> The Ouija stammers under so much doubt,
> finally reaches L, then O,
> pauses under its lettered heaven,
> and as it veers toward *loss*  and the long past
> that lodges with us, you press toward *love*,
> and the disk stalls
>                                                 outside
> a cry is loosed from the bay,
> but you are looking for two swans
> on a glass lake, a decade of roses--
> oh my lonely, my precious loaf,
> can't we say outloud the parent word,
> *longing*,
>                         whose sad head
> looms over any choice you make?
>
> --Ellen Bryant Voigt, *The Forces of Plenty.*
>
>
>
> ========================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at ripon.edu
>
> Home Page:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz
>
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-- 
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!
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