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Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Found Ted Kooser Poem UD, faithful readers know, has a regular University Diaries feature in which she makes poems out of phrases she finds in news stories. Today she offers a variant of that -- she makes a Ted Kooser poem (our poet laureate) out of phrases she has found in a newspaper article. First, by way of example, here’s a Kooser: A Glimpse of the Eternal Just now, a sparrow lighted on a pine bow right outside my bedroom window and a puff of yellow pollen flew away. To write this sort of poem (which is not Kooser‘s alone but the provenance of much current American creative writing), you need it to be a short description of a poignant moment in your life prompted by a small something in the natural world that happened to catch your eye. To lend this thin form of verse profundity, it’s a good idea to affix a spiritual title to it. Also, your last line should have a ‘self-consuming’ feel to it (here “flew away”), suggesting the impermanence of even your poem as it unravels at the very end. UD now shows you how it’s done from the ground up. Here’s an article from UPI today: Untilled Utah field becomes vole heaven Here’s the poem: Until Heaven [Note: UD has provided not merely a spiritual reference in her title, but a pun on “untilled”] This morning, Two voles ran across my feet, Fat, unfleet. Deep in the unplowed fields of Utah Multiplying Burrowing Their habitat Brings out the cat And the culling guns. Their furious joy Will soon be stilled: No field remains for long untilled. |