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 |
Eleanor Lerman, “Now I Walk Through This Human-Built World”
I remember you on the cold streets of Montreal
a blonde buying chocolate in a French city full
of synagogues. That was the year of the Upanishads,
when love was universal. I know that you want
to move someplace warmer now, but I have
seen you in boots and gloves, with ice glistening
in your hair. It is too late for me to change
I am here. I am content. I am still at workNow I walk through this human-built world
with my little bag of shopping and my dreams
Light is laid like a tablecloth across the
afternoon and even the thinnest, purest saints
will eat. Quietly, people leave their offices
Quietly, they cross the square, stroll through
the park, heading home. There is nothing more
to be afraid of. I hope that you will stay with me
I am happy. Darling, even if I am lost
The Sensual World Re-Emerges is the fifth collection of poems by Eleanor Lerman. There was a 25-year gap between her first and second collections; as Lerman explained, “I just kind of moved away from poetry, because it was making me experience a lot of very raw feelings that, when I wasn’t writing, were making me think I was crazy and getting way out of control… I decided that maybe I could do this again, no matter what that means confronting. I don’t know where I got the courage from, because I knew that all kinds of cans of worms were going to get opened again. The strange thing is that doing the actual work turned out to be remarkably easy: the issues I had to (have to) deal with around the work are still very difficult.”
Other Lerman poems include “The Marfa Lights” (published in Connotation Press), “Starfish” (Ralph), “What the Dark-Eyed Angel Knows” (The Writer’s Almanac), and “About Patti Boyd and Me” and “Starina” (from the Poetry Foundation website).
30 March 2010 | poetry |
Our Endless and Proper Work is my new book with Belt Publishing about starting (and sticking to) a productive writing practice. 
