A few poems by Grady Chambers, Dorianne Laux, Mary Oliver, Tina Chang, and Beth Ann Fennelly for Poetry Month

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You could smell the day’s heat even before the day began. 

Constant trickle, endless green trees flanking the highway: 

summer had come back. . . . 

—From "A Known Fact," a poem by Grady Chambers (Quarterly West, Issue 96).

It’s the best part of the day, morning light sliding

down rooftops, treetops, the birds pulling themselves

up out of whatever stupor darkened their wings, . . . 

—From "I Never Wanted to Die," a poem by Dorianne Laux (Poem-a-Day, April 16, 2021, Academy of American Poets).

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees 
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
—From "Wild Geese," a poem by Mary Oliver. 

Up ahead it’s white. Snow animal,

I’m running at your back. I’ve failed to tell you
I’ve been hungry all this time, . . . 

—From "Color," a poem by Tina Chang (Hybrida: Poems, W. W. Norton, 2019).

Today is the day the first bare-chested
          runners appear, coursing down College Hill
                      as I drive to campus to teach, . . . 
—From "First Warm Day in a College Town," a poem by Beth Ann Fennelly (Unmentionables, W. W. Norton, 2008).

Poems by Danusha Laméris, David Lehman, Ada Limón, and Mary Oliver

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You're beautiful, sister, eat more fruit,
said the attendant every time my mother 
pulled into the 76 off Ashby Avenue.
--From "Service Station," a poem by Danusha Laméris, Tin House (March 21, 2018), from Issue 75.

It's June 15, 2017, a Thursday,
fortieth anniversary of the infamous day
the Mets traded Tom Seaver to Cincinnati

--From "It Could Happen to You," a poem by David Lehman, The New Yorker (December 4, 2017), p. 54.

The road wasn't as hazardous then, 
when I'd walk to the steel guardrail, 
lean my bendy girl body over, and stare 
at the cold creek water.
--From "Overpass," a poem by Ada Limón, The New Yorker (December 4, 2017), p. 27.

Some kind of relaxed and beautiful thing
kept flickering in with the tide
and looking around. 

--From "Dogfish," a poem by Mary Oliver, from her collection Dream Work (Grove/Atlantic, 1986).