Joanna Rawson, “Wind Camp”

I can’t seduce these raucous birds.

Or sneak up on a willow while they riot there.

Look—even my shadow’s a suspect in this dark.

I can’t approach without startling from them
an insurgent cursing that gusts and stutters down the trunk.

The weeping limbs ripple in alert as if they’ve been started by wind
that steals through thistle toward their camp.

I can’t manage to net them in my grip.
I can’t seem to accomplish any sort of government,

any hold over these unruly crows who nest in rags
and scream at the blowback their quarrelsome cries.

Still, they allow me to stay in the vicinity—

many nights, right here among them, as they activate the dust
and carry on disturbing the perilous air.

Even in their mercy, I believe they understand

my wanting to end their song.

Unrest is the second collection by Joanna Rawson; it’s not easy to find other poems of hers online, but you can find reviews aplenty—like the praise from The Rumpus that describes Unrest as “an exercise in active observation, even when observing is unnerving.” Or the even more enthusiastic tribute at Corduroy Books: “She… lays down achingly beautiful art which has, at its heart, a dead-serious and steely-eyed consciousness.”

In an interview last fall, Rawson discussed her transition from journalist to poet: “It seems important to keep on using the language in flexible, expressive, surprising ways. It gives exercise to what we say—good poetry gives great shapeliness and elasticity and expanded boundaries to the language, and keeps it exciting when merchandising, marketing and selling try so hard to reduce and kill it… Poetry’s never old-fashioned in this sense—poetry always finds ways to ride the waves, even and maybe especially the technological ones.” If you live in Iowa City, you’ll have a chance to hear her read from Unrest at Prairie Lights.

1 April 2010 | poetry |