Poetry: Mothers

A few weeks ago, I saw Kay Ryan and Billy Collins speak at the final event of this year’s Chicago Humanities Festival. They’re the current Poet Laureate and a former one. They read some poetry and bantered, and it was really, really good. The theme of this year’s CHF had something to do with humor and I was thinking that two poets wouldn’t exactly cause much knee slapping or side splitting, but it was very funny. The poems they read were almost all excellent too.

The Lanyard

Billy Collins has a great poem called The Lanyard. It’s about mothers and the debt that we each owe ours. I’d like to say something insightful about it, about mothers, but I think the poem stands up just fine on its own. I was going to post the full thing here, but I decided I don’t feel comfortable doing that, so you can find it here. If you’d like to hear and see the author read it, the Poetry Foundation has a video of Billy Collins reading The Lanyard and I highly recommend it. Actually, I beg you to watch it—please—it’ll do you good. Watch it here. Or here:

So, yeah, what he said.

Notes:

(1) Anne: The introduction to the video is by G.K. (yes, that G.K.), so you may want to start at the 20 second mark.

(2) Look at all those people listening to a poet! It warms my heart.

Poetry

I have published precisely one poem in my life. It was in the University of Michigan Law School’s Griot, so that’s using a very liberal interpretation of “publish.” Most of my other poetry has consisted primarily of sentimental love poems, most of which probably aren’t very good.

I actually submitted two poems to the Griot and they took only one, and I always thought it was the lesser of the two. I also still bristle when I think about the editing process for the one they took. One of my reviewing readers asked a very dumb question, and in the end they both convinced me to chop the end off, a decision I regret.

I figured I’d post them here so you can read them and, if you want, let me know what you think about them, particularly which is better and if you like “Waiting for the 33” with the end or without. Keep in mind I wrote both of these in one evening, so…

Waiting for the 33

Two crows on the power line

Mating ritual – Big male, smaller female

Cawing/cackling

Picking/preening

He shifts away, she shifts toward

She shifts and flies away

He stays

Perhaps it was her unladylike behavior

Perhaps he’s just a coward, like many men

He stayed on awhile, cackling

Five minutes later he caws across the street, in a tree

Five minutes later she joins him, they resume the dance

He stays near, preens her

Coyly playing their game, jumping from branch to branch

Preening, kissing in the rain

Back on my side of the street

Back where they started

Their movements cause the line to quiver.

(vibrations from their love work across, into the poles, continue into the staples and nails and tar)

[The published version does not have the final line]

Laundry

“I hope he wakes up this morning and has no socks.”

she says to no one, as she rubs at her mascara.

The tissues go in the toilet.

After grimacing at the initial raucous roar,

she waits for the sweet ring of the B-flat that follows.

Back behind the counter, wondering why

each drink is so unnecessarily complicated,

she winces when the milk turns to foam;

as the warm quiet rumble builds to a wail.

Fleeing the clamor,

finding the stillness of the back alley,

she takes one drag before she tosses

her cigarette to the ground.

Choking back a sob, she picks up the butt,

and extinguishes it on the thin skin of her wrist.

Biting down on nothing, wiping at her tears,

she thinks of bare feet on cold tile,

and smiles.