I mentioned in my blog last October about my seeming inability to both read and write poetry. One guy emailed me a couple of poems by Billy Collins, our current Poet Laureate. I liked them and actually bought his book “Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems” to give my 17 year-old daughter who’s been writing her own poems for a couple of years. I’ve been borrowing it from her to read it myself. I’m starting to like Collins’ stuff.
Now this via email from another reader:
“Michael Cary says more on one page than anyone I’ve ever read. His poetry is often in essay form, and it’s written from a man’s point of view. Here is a sample [from his book] “The Noise The Earth Makes” by Michael Carey (Pterodactyl Press – ISBN 0-931757-36-3). It’s probably out of print, but a used book store might have a copy.”
A Few Good Words by Michael Cary
The thing that scared him most about a wife was that he’d run out of things to talk about. The old bravado, quiet sincerity, those awkward fumblings in the dark soon would not be enough. It never occurred to him that things could go on as they had before: lonely as hell in the fields, growing darker from sunlight and hard work. It never occurred to him, until it happened, that there could also be a sweetness in the long cool evenings: the baby asleep, the skin loosening slowly over a book, and someone else, here and there, with just a few good words in the night.