Molly Brodak, “The First Poem”

Now, get up—
that horizon circle
is edgeless, unstoppable.

But try.
Start with a window,
any edible box.

See what you
will fit through.
Your first poem

must have been
about this crown of pines,
the cirrus clouds far off,
and the wind between them.

The first poem:
wasn’t a gold ring, or
a handkerchief trick.

It didn’t
ask you to sit.

Molly Brodak won the 2009 Iowa Poetry Prize for her first full-length collection A Little Middle of the Night. (Earlier this week, I featured the other Iowa winner, Samuel Amadon.) You can read several of Brodak’s poems, including the one that gives the book its title, at the website for the creative writing program at West Virginia University. There’s also “After the Accident,” an earlier poem first published in New Orleans Review, and “Poem With Substitute Words for Love,” which had been published in DIAGRAM.

(As I understand it, last night there was a celebration at Augusta State University, where Brodak teaches, to honor her prize and the publication of her work—congratulations!)

22 April 2010 | poetry |