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1. Letter from the Editors

Dear Readers,

Keeping you apprised of our end-of-year effort to bridge the gap towards our 2017 fundraising goal of $60,000, we have received over $47,000 as of Friday. We are so grateful to all who have stepped up to help us continue in service to poetry. If you haven't yet contributed this year, please visit our Support Page, where you can contribute via PayPal with your credit card or PayPal account, or print out our form to mail with your check. Thank you so much for your support!

We continue our prose series this week with "Derek Walcott at BU: A Sorting," by Sven Birkerts, from AGNI:

"Joseph was usually first out of the box with some dark jibe, which would inevitably set Derek into volatile contortions, releasing his extraordinary laugh, a full-body explosion. It would then fall to Seamus to offer the judicious sardonic rejoinder. I wished I could have brought it all home in a jar. My stomach hurt from laughing. I lay in bed, my head spinning from combined excesses, but also with the feeling that the world was, as Frost had it, "the right place for love."

Look for it here.

Enjoy this week's poems!

Warmest regards,

Don Selby & Diane Boller

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2. Sponsor Messages

 Vermont College of Fine Arts MFAs in Writing
Vermont College of Fine Arts offers a traditinal low-residency MFA in Writing program—now celebrating its 35th year—along with a residential MFA in Writing & Publishing program.

 Jackson Center for Creative Writing at Hollins
Write the next chapter of an epic.
Talented faculty. Visiting writers. Writer-in-Residence.
Graduate Assistantships, Teaching Fellowships,
Travel Funding, and Full Scholarships. 

Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing
More than fifty years of achievement in poetry,
Fiction, and nonfiction. 

Bachelor of Arts with concentration or Minor in creative writing
Where students mature into authors. 

Most of all, a vibrant, supportive community.
https://hollinsmfa.wordpress.com/first-child/

 MFA in Poetry at Texas State University
The MFA in Poetry at Texas State University offers students the opportunity to work closely with distinguished faculty such as Naomi Shihab Nye, Cyrus Cassells, Cecily Parks, Kathleen Peirce, Roger Jones, and Steve Wilson. Students also learn from internationally known visiting poets, and develop their craft in a supportive and naturally beautiful setting, just 30 minutes from Austin. Assistantships and scholarships are available. The application deadline is January 15th. Please visit our website to learn more, or email us at [email protected] with any questions.

 Palm Beach Poetry Festival
January 15-20, 2018, Delray Beach, Florida 
Workshops, readings, interview, gala and performance events with Laure-Anne Bosselaar, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Chard deNiord, Beth Ann Fennelly, Ross Gay, Rodney Jones, Phillis Levin, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Tim Seibles. Admission is by application. For more information, visit www.palmbeachpoetryfestival.org or email [email protected]

 Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference
Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference, June 1-7, 2018—Specializing in the literary translation of poetry and prose. Award-winning translators Kazim Ali, Susan Bernofsky, Mónica de la Torre, Bill Johnston, and Sora Kim-Russellwill offer introductory and advanced workshops along with an inspiring schedule of readings and lectures all in the heart of Vermont’s Green Mountains. See application details at
www.middlebury.edu/blwc/bltc.

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3. Poetry News Links

News and reviews from around the web, updated daily:

• Rebecca Foust introduces Kathryn Stripling Byer's "Solstice." (Women's Voices for Change)
• An obituary for Don Coles, the Canadian poet and professor. (The Globe and Mail)
• John McAuliffe reviews Song of Songs 2.0: New and Selected Poems, by Kevin Higgins, The President of the Planet, by David Wheatley, and Lamentations, by Paul Muldoon. (The Irish Times)
• Cliona Ní Ríordáin reviews Aifric MacAodha's Foreign News, translated by David Wheatley. (The Irish Times)
• Ovid no longer in exile. (The Guardian)
• Lisa Russ Spaar explores Susan Stewart's The Hive and Jennifer Chang's Some Say the Lark. (Los Angeles Review of Books)
• An obituary for David Bonanno, the longtime editor of American Poetry Review. (The Inquirer)
• Robyn Creswell on Adonis. (The New Yorker)
• And more...

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4. New Arrivals

These new arrivals are available for purchase via Poetry Daily/Amazon.com.

• Children with Enemies, Stuart Dischell (University of Chicago Press)
• Hunger, Judy Jordan (Tinderbox Editions)
• Gatherest, Sasha Steensen (Ahsahta Press)
• A Blanket of Raven Feathers, Larry Schug (North Star Press of St. Cloud)
• Synaesthesium, Moira Egan (Criterion Books)
• The President of Planet Earth, David Wheatley (Wake Forest University Press)
• You and Me and Why We Are in Love, Aurelia Alcais (Penguin Books)
• When Love Was Reels, José B. González (Arte Publico Press)
• After the Afterlife, T. R. Hummer (Acre Books)
• Through the Silence, David Elliott (Nightshade Press)
• The Ego and the Empiricist, Derek Mong (Two Sylvias Press)
• Killing Marias, Claudia Castro Luna (Two Sylvias Pres)
• How He Loved Them, Kevin Prufer (Four Way Books)
• House of McQueen, Valerie Wallace (Four Way Books)
• For the Love of Endings, Ben Purkert (Four Way Books)
• Shadow-feast, Joan Houlihan (Four Way Books)
• Threat Come Close, Aaron Coleman (Four Way Books)
• Mouth of Summer, Ann Iverson (Kelsay Books)
• What Will Soon Take Place, Tania Runyan (Paraclete Press)
• Among the Mensans, Corey Mesler (Iris Press)
• Under an Adirondack Moon, C. Ann Kodra (Iris Press)
• Arrows of Light , Andrea Potos (Iris Chapbook Series)
• Past the Edge of Blue, James Elliott Keith (Iris Chapbook Series)
• WTF, Laura Foley (CW Books)
• Night Ringing, Laura Foley (Headmistress Press)

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5. This Week’s Featured Poets

The work of the following poets will appear as Today's Poem on the days indicated:

Monday - Helen Dunmore
Tuesday - A. R. Ammons
Wednesday - Stuart Dischell
Thursday - Alan Shapiro
Friday - Benjamin S. Grossberg
Saturday - Julie Paul
Sunday - Michael Coady

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6. Featured Poets December 11, 2017 - December 17, 2017

These and other past featured poets may be found in our archive:

Monday - Galway Kinnell
Tuesday - Raymond McDaniel
Wednesday - Adonis / tr. Khaled Mattawa
Thursday - Michael Teig
Friday - Lauren Clark
Saturday - Patricia Fargnoli
Sunday - Mike White

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7. Last Year’s Featured Poets

These poems will be retired from our archive during the coming week.

Paul Muldoon, "Lateral' and "Pelt"
Hailey Leithauser, "Some Small Bone"
Mary Jo Salter, "Today's Specials"
Cory Hutchinson-Reuss, "At Times What I Wish for the Field I Wish for Myself"
Marilyn Hacker, "Calligraphies: IV"
Jeffrey Greene, "The Island"
Lee Upton, "Ale & Cakes"

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8. Poem From Last Year

Today's Specials

Why did I come tonight? 
Too late: I've handed my keys 
to some boy valet, polite

to the point of insolence. 
He's so young, I'm so old—
really, why take offense

or even take the time, 
the precious time, to reflect 
that I was once like him,

appalled at the parade 
of the hair-sprayed and the bald? 
I tip him, scan the crowd,

and advance toward the cliques 
of nerds, cheerleaders, potheads, 
jocks, and Jesus freaks

I'd felt awkward with, and forty 
years on, at last are peers: 
yes, this is my party.

It's mid-June, and bright tents 
are erected to shield our kind 
against the elements,

which hardly could be milder. 
A faint breeze stirs the scents 
of sunscreen, crab cakes, beer,

cut grass, and gasoline. 
I think I'll get a drink. 
I begin to cross the lawn

(ducking that guy I dated 
once or twice, and did he 
see me? Do I seem ... dated?)

and spot, beside the wine bar, 
a whiteboard with Today's 
Specials in black marker.

Why do I trust my eyes? 
I can't read at this distance. 
I'm nearer now—and surprise,

here's what it really says: 
In Memoriam. What 
genius arranged for this?

How thoughtful and horrible. 
Different hands have come 
as they once did at school

to diagram the sentence 
of those who left us first. 
More like taking attendance:

names, dates, an excuse 
for absence when it's known—
cancer, accident. Who's

that, Bob Rogers? Bob. 
My funny, uncle-faced pal, 
pride of the Drama Club,

who tended to land the role 
of banker or judge because 
he had a middle-aged middle?

Dead at thirty-seven. 
He probably looked the same 
as he had at seventeen,

while most of us lived to stare 
for decades at the stage 
makeup in the mirror

that gave back our true age. 
Bob Rogers. I played your kid. 
Our names met on a page

in playbills kept awhile, 
tossed away—just as I turn 
now from the other special

names for today, and scout 
for anyone to talk with 
to drive the wisdom out..

 

Mary Jo Salter
Southwest Review
Volume 101, Number 4

Copyright © 2016 by Mary Jo Salter
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission