A poem by R.S. Thomas from The Writer's Chronicle and three poems by Keetje Kuipers from her book The Keys to the Jail

~

To all light things

I compared her; to

a snowflake, a feather. . . .
 --From "Comparisons," a poem by R.S. Thomas, from Collected Later Poems 1988-2000 (Bloodaxe Books, 2004), reprinted in The Writer's Chronicle (October/November 2013), p. 56.  

 

It was the season of dead moles,

black silken pelts like evening purses

abandoned along the forest path. . . . 

--From "Our Last Vacation," a poem by Keetje Kuipers, published by Connotation Press, Volume 5, Issue 8 (April 2014) and reprinted in her collection The Keys to the Jail (BOA Editions, 2014), p. 15.    

 

 

What if I came here with some idea

of this place, of who I could be when I'm

 

in it: Learned the names for every clouded

body of water. . . .  

--From "Dog Gun Lake," a poem by Keetje Kuipers, published by Lo-Ball and reprinted in her collection The Keys to the Jail (BOA Editions, 2014), p. 59.  

 

 

It was a beautiful night for the rodeo. 

Rain all day and then a sheen of evening

sun.  I went to the grocery store, bought

someone else's bread, some else's

milk. . . .    

--From "A Beautiful Night for the Rodeo," a poem by Keetje Kuipers, published by American Poetry Review (May/June 2013) and reprinted in Poetry Daily and in her collection The Keys to the Jail (BOA Editions, 2014), p. 81.   

Alice Munro, Ellen Bass, Stewart O'Nan

~
Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You, a collection of thirteen short stories by Alice Munro (McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited, 1974).  My favorite stories here were "How I Met My Husband" (pp. 45-66 in the paperback Vintage International version from 2004) and "Winter Wind" (pp. 192-206).

Mules of Love, a collection of poems by Ellen Bass (BOA Editions, 2002).  My favorites were "The Thing Is" (p. 72), which I mentioned in a previous post, and "In Which a Deer Is Found in a Bubble Bath, Having Entered the House, Turned on the Faucet, Knocked Over the Bottle, and Stepped In—Not Necessarily in That Order" (pp. 23-24).   

 

The Good Wife, a novel by Stewart O'Nan (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005).