YOUNG WRITERS POEMS
Four Poems by Adam Goldberg
POSTED 2009-01-31 IN YOUNG WRITERS POEMS
Adam Goldberg's bright, ironic poetry is built on a keen awareness of self, the complexity of longing, and what seems at once a wavy, yet sturdy floor. A graduate of Emerson College, living for a year now on his own in Greece, he brings his insightful poems to life by crafting with precision a poet's spontaneous, personal reports from the ongoing struggle to be.
TRYING TO READ SOMETHING THAT’S WRITTEN ON THE FLOOR WHILE STANDING UP
Driving home at 3 or 4 the stadium is bright in front of me
And 1930’s steam rises from the manhole cover
Because it’s gotten colder
Maybe it’s because I’ve gotten younger
But I realize
(with a laugh perhaps)
That you laid your head on me tonight
Instead of your feet
I guess that’s something
I find it hard to write
When I’m in
Limbo
Or maybe it’s because I said
To myself
That I’d never write a single goddamn word
About you
And then you kissed me
And I thought
Things changed
Because it's those little things you can hold on to
And that was all I really needed
I thought
Just a little bit
Just a little
Sign
Of something
But I’m still driving home late
Trying to find my way
Onto the fucking highway
And even if I laugh
To myself
I have to remember
That even if you stopped
Resting your feet on me
I'll always be
Your doormat
Five Poems by Laurel Fuson
POSTED 2009-01-07 IN YOUNG WRITERS POEMS
Laurel is an insightful young writer out of the creative writing program at Oberlin College. Intensely aware of the world around her, Laurel's sense of place is central in her work. Written during her time on Paros, Greece, these poems reflect her communion with the Greek landscape and culture.
DREAMING ABOUT THE OTHER
When I think about going back,
to the thorny winter air, muddy
paths in frost-frozen ruts, the sky
muted or just turned off, I still
manage excitement. Because I know
that place. How it will recover. It will
push the heat up as if from the center
of the Earth, from its blown-furnace
heart, and laugh as we kneel, thankful.
The land will grow so lovely
that we will cease to think about it
in the richness of summer, leaves wide
over our heads, drinking beer
and lemonade, dreaming
fairy thoughts about snow.
The mornings will come, peach
juice, thick, sugar, the air like holding
your hand over a cup of tea, moisture
clinging a little uncomfortably.
In remembering I will forget
the wind and the lemon tree raking
branches against my balcony in the night.
The time I tried to climb the mountain
to get a better view, the dried scrub
grabbing my leggings. How I came down
through someone's yard, the goats
bleated and ran, a woman frowned
through my apology and I walked
the highway back to my apartment.
Keeping only the way I learned,
some, about photographs and the way
our minds are constantly taking them:
the neighbor’s baby, her split-second smiles more
honest than the ones we sustain, the words
in all those books matching the clear
light hugged close to the island,
the shuttered, broken doors
that still lead somewhere.
2 Poems by Sarah Mitchem
POSTED 2007-05-24 IN YOUNG WRITERS POEMS
Sarah Mitchem is a sharp young writer out of Virginia Tech. She is at once careful, strikingly open, and very exact in her work. These poems, arising from her time in Paros, Greece, where she studied writing at Hellenic International Studies in the Arts, allow a very literary, internal view into an acute self-awareness.
THE WATERLINE
At the harbor a little
fishing boat is tied
to the pier.
The rough water and chopping at it.
I want to get in.
Not to lose myself in its rocking motion,
just desiring to write in the boat
and not worry about slipping away.But I would end up noticing
where the paint is chipped,
what lay at the bottom of the boards,
the colors chosen.
All so that I could transcribe it
faithfully in my journal.
Recording small accuracies and
promising to remember them.
Reciting what’s around me to
avoid what’s in me.Always in this body
but that I don’t know myself,
don’t let my heart rule.
I’m always brought back
to segments of myself.
The way my motions
make people record me.
The Greek men reeling me in by my wrists
so that I struggle to slip onto side streets.
To dissolve there, and dissolve here.I did not get in the boat.
I do not write how salted wood feels.
I did what I do with you.
I imagine the boat.
I record the habits I would perform.
I fail to reconcile.
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