Poetry

Not many people know this, but I also write poetry for adults.  I’ve been a poet since I was a tiny kid, because my family was about poetry more than any other kind of writing (I know–unusual).  I was always afraid to try writing a novel until the idea for SKY was dumped in my lap–more on that on the SKY page, if you’re interested.

After my son was born, I wrote poems occasionally, but I picked it up again in 2010.  In 2011 I actually submitted to an anthology (gasp!).  The poems were rejected, but I’m going to keep submitting to journals and other anthologies.  Poetry exercises entirely different writing muscles than prose does, and I like the contrast.  Working on one form compliments the other.

Here’s a poem I wrote in the spring of 2011, after my father died.

Sunday Morning Trains, 100th Merdian

As his fish-breaths
gasp
and slow
to just a few,

I hear a whistle
telling us
Wyoming coal
is going
to Omaha,

fleeing the vast
empty lovely West

which is
the direction
he glides

on the sound of
the next train
the next breath

and
it is done.