Iowa's way with words

A wire sparks in the live oak, scorching limbs
And leaves, igniting tufts of Spanish moss:

A hiss and sizzle overhead, a burning
In the spring air, smoke coiled then slithering
Along the street down to the dying river—

That’s where the workers up since midnight gather
Masks, beads, and litter from the last parade.

The penitents march off to church. A gardener
Spreads ashes over flower beds. I wait
To hear the turning latch, your voice at the door.

New Orleans

—By Christopher Merrill, director of the University of Iowa International Writing Program

From Brilliant Water, a volume of poetry by Christopher Merrill, to be published in April by White Pine Press.

About

Facts about the iris
Do not make the iris
Open. Open your eyes.
It’s tomorrow. Call out for someone.

—By James Galvin, professor of creative writing

Reprinted from Resurrection Update: Collected Poems 1975-1997. Copyright 1988 by James Galvin. Reprinted with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, PO Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271. All rights reserved.



Sounds of the Resurrected Dead Man’s Footsteps (#20)

1. Shakespeare Expected

William Shakespeare of an actual presence.
His knee sore from kneeling, his teeth chattering, his wrap wet and gritty from
    the dirty rain.
I take a front seat at the rehearsal where he is expected.
Hamlet has shown, his hand already cupped to hold a skull.
Ophelia presses out her dress, still damp from having been worn under her coat.
And Shakespeare is trudging, trudging, toward the theater.
Trying to get in the mood in this weather is like trying to play a piano—
    with mittens.
The day is too thickly about one.
The crowd sees in his dramas the debris of an exhausted court.
While his patrons, addicted to bouquets, believe them to be the consummate
    valediction of their lively personalities.
Here he comes now, a bard in sheep’s clothing.
At the stage door, he steps out of his time and into the future.
I can see now that Ophelia will drown in her beauty before she dies.
That Hamlet will kill himself first in word, then in deed.

2. Shakespeare Dismissed

I can’t say why he thinks himself Shakespeare at the window.
I can’t explain his predilection for iambics and balconies.
He has fallen on his sword, he has nothing.
The gangrenous covers of old books stick together on the shelves.
People have memorized his sonnets for their own reasons.
Why have I not spoken to him?
What do you think he thinks about, this old derelict of words?
This overgrown boy who cannot let go of a lump of coal.
Who has broken the balsa airplane.
And now dons a canvas coat to make his way to the theater in the rain.
And a cap, and sunglasses in the winter.
I swear, trying to get in the right mood still means falling on one’s sword.
The backslapping buffoonery, the sublimity of tragedy—he has the bruises
    and the scars, and the sinkholes of infection.
Here he is now, stepping around the shards of a mirror the lead actress
    threw across the stage when she thought he was not coming.

—By Marvin Bell, Flannery O’Connor Professor of Letters

Reprinted from Nightworks: Poems 1962-2000. Copyright 2000 by Marvin Bell. Reprinted with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, PO Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271. All rights reserved.



Oversea Archetypes

"Overseas": vision of portholes,
Waves lapping and curling,
Stylized and elegant as
In a woodblock print by Hokusai

Yet mapless: inconstant shifts
From archipelago to continent to atoll,
Blue in between, denoting lost time;
Nothing there of embarkation,
The boarding-pass worn
Ragged in the hand, shimmer of tarmac,
Desert haze, stars in the wrong quadrant,
Fumblings with strange coins;
Unfamiliar syllables, metallic and harsh
As a new filling in the teeth:
Accents relocated, stresses
In a new place

Overseas: shriek of gull
White and thin as wave’s-edge,
Lost in a far corner
Of the wind.

—By Rowena Torrevillas, adjunct assistant professor of English

Reprinted by permission of the author, from The Sea Gypsies Stay, published by the University of the Philippines Press, 2000.



In April

This I saw on an April day:
Warm rain spilt from a sun-lined cloud,
A sky-flung wave of gold at evening,
And a cock pheasant treading a dusty path
Shy and proud.

And this I found in an April field:
A new white calf in the sun at noon,
A flash of blue in a cool moss bank,
And tips of tulips promising flowers
To a blue-winged loon.

And this I tried to understand
As I scrubbed the rust from my brightening plow:
The movement of seed in furrowed earth,
And a blackbird whistling sweet and clear
From a green-sprayed bough.

—By James Hearst, 1926

Reprinted from The Complete Poetry of James Hearst, to be published by the University of Iowa Press in June.



Upcoming poetry readings

April 9  A Celebration of Emily Dickinson; 8 p.m., Prairie Lights Books, 15 S. Dubuque; free

April 11 Ann Lauterbach; 8 p.m., 101 Biology Building East; free

April 12 David Hamilton, Iowa Review; 8 p.m., Prairie Lights Books, 15 S. Dubuque; free

April 18 Joanna Klink; 8 p.m., Prairie Lights Books, 15 S. Dubuque; free

April 20 Tomas Salamun and Ales Debeljak; 8 p.m., Prairie Lights Books, 15 S. Dubuque; free

April 23 Jane Mead; 8 p.m., Prairie Lights Books, 15 S. Dubuque; free

April 26 Christopher Merrill; 8 p.m., Prairie Lights Books, 15 S. Dubuque; free

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