Third Prize, 2009 Literal Latte Poetry Award.
I have a who singing silently to your who singing silently to my who, whoever and whomever knows how to love, whose mouth knows how to kiss to make words leap like ballerinas, glide like kayaks in white water, high tide breathless fast paddling fast swimming in swift currents, jet-skiing hang- gliding syllables words sentences type- faces strange and stranger, other languages, symbols characters libraries and on-line dictionaries waving tildes, diaerereses, circumflexes, and the sexy รง-cedillas, pictures imported and ex- ported up/downloaded ballads anthems carols fugues lullabies etudes concertos symphonies marches chants arias sung played my inner orchestra my instruments of long ago and now every bagpipe, saxophone 'cello lute maracas viola flute harp and trumpet piccolo bassoon. My erhu. My pipa .My simple rain- stick. My Biblical ram's horn all now all then all when my who which wants wants wants to be here (and there) when the world is and was and will be beyond time and space, beyond you, beyond beyond, and beyond.
Barbara Mossberg
15 Jul 2010 11:56 pm
This is a startling and irresistible poem which should change the way we all submit brief bios; perhaps it is a new genre, which takes the “who what where” principles of journalism and information for “news” and shakes it down to something lived, something we want to know, a new way of knowing and knowing that it is impossible to render oneself in a bio. It was a pleasure to read, and I will share it with my listeners of the Poetry Slow Down, a radio show devoted to poetry and its importance in our lives, combining contemporary poets, classical poets, cowboy poets, famous poets, unsung poets, and all manner of themes every week (it is an hour a week). You can listen on the internet at http://www.krxa540.com live on Sundays PST Noon-1 pm, or on podcast afterwards at my website. I will read this poem Sunday July 18, and will organize a program that deals with the teaching and profession of poetry. I look forward to sharing this with our devoted listeners, and thank Literal Latte for its support of poets.
Barbara Mossberg, Poet in Residence, Pacific Grove, CA