Headwaters
Ellen Bryant Voigt
hardcover, 55 pages
published October 21st, 2013 by W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 0393083209
ISBN-13 9780393083200
If she did not visit Purdue University for the poetry reading, I might not read her new released collection, Headwaters, yet. Actually due to lack of knowledge on contemporary poetry, I did know nothing about her, but only her name and finalist of Pulitzer prize. Even though bought this book to get her autograph at her poetry reading, I could not attend the meeting, unluckily. Even though having tried to write a book review on her poetry collection, I decided to write it later. It has been little long since I had done reading, and I made my decision to re-read them, again, and try to memorize her poems.
*But there were three-four remarkable elements while reading her poetry; lack of punctuation and capitalization, inner rhyme and repetition.
Headwaters
I made a large mistake I left my house I went into the world it was not
the most perilous hostile part but I couldn't tell among the people there
who needed what no tracks in the snow no boot pointed toward me or away
no snow as in my dooryard only the many currents of self-doubt I clung
to my own life raft I had room on it for only me you're not surprised
it grew smaller and smaller or maybe I grew larger and heavier
but don't you think I'm doing better in this regard I try to do better
Spring
years of unearthing the rocks out of the field and soon enough
you've built a stone wall the longer the marriage
the less the need for trying to agree but we've agreed
what will happen at the end of it nothing
except the old immutable forms
like a shovel shared at the grave for texts
Ecclesiastes so the bereaved
can choose whether to believe
that death is a kind of hibernation this spring the groundhog
foraging in our yard was smaller thinner a strange
perpendicular crimp in its tail which proved
to the rational mind it was a different creature but look beloved
how by late summer it's fattened out how its coat now gleams how
when frightened it also hurries into the barn
Sleep
another heavy frost what doesn't die or fly away
the groundhog for instance the bear is deep in sleep I'm thinking
a lot about sleep translation I'm not sleeping much
who used to be a champion of sleep
ex-champions are pathetic my inner parent says the world
is full of evil death cruelty degradation not sleeping
scores only 2 out of 10
but a moral sense
is exhausting I am exhausted a coma looks good to me
if only I could be sure there'd still be dreams it's what I miss the most
even in terrible dreams at least you feel what you feel not what
you're supposed to feel your house burns down so what
if you survived you rake the ashes sobbing
exhausted
from trying to not smoke I once asked for a simple errand
from my beloved who wanted me not to smoke he forgot unforgivable
I fled the house like an animal wounded enraged I was thinking
more clearly than I had ever thought my thought was why
prolong this life I flung myself into the car I drove like a fiend
to the nearest store I asked unthinking for unfiltered Luckies oh
brand of my girlhood I paid the price I took my prize to the car I slit
the cellophane I tapped out one perfect white cylinder I brought to my face
the smell of the barns the fires cooking it golden brown smell of my father
my uncles my grandfather's tin of loose tobacco his packet of delicate paper
the deliberate way he rolled and licked and tapped and lit and drew in
and relished it the smell of the wild girls behind the gym the boys
in pickup trucks I sat in my car as the other cars crept by
I looked like a pervert it was perverse
a Lucky under my nose
I drove myself home
I threw away the pack which was unwise the gods
don't notice whining they notice the brief bright flares of human will
they lean from their couches yes more fear and dread for that one
yes let's turn the suffering up a notch let's watch her
strike the match i strike it now when I wake
in the dark I light that little fire
