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I found a copy of what was probably a college textbook, The Best American Poetry: 1999—edited by the late Robert Bly. 1999 was probably the first year I read anyone's poetry outside of my own and boy howdy, does this book have some bangers.
I don't often scour the poetry books on my shelves. I tend to search for a feeling, a tug of something, and then a choice is made. Not a lot of thought goes into it—like how I choose what to wear. And I don't have to finish the collection when the feeling is gone or try to complicate choices that have zero wrong answers—I don't try and second-guess what the universe has for me next. I just lean a little bit, stick my heart out a few inches and see which way the wind is blowing. There's very little science or reasoning to it. I save that kind of shit for my job.
I found a copy of what was originally a college textbook, The Best American Poetry: 1999—edited by the late Robert Bly. Probably the first year I read anyone's poetry outside of my own and boy howdy, does this book have some bangers.
- Scapegoat by Yusef Komunyakaa
- The Shipfitter's Wife by Dorianne Laux
- The Sleepless Grape by Li-Young Lee
- The Return by Philip Levine
- What Would Freud Say? by Bob Hicok
The list, obviously, could go on and on. I highly recommend grabbing a copy, if only to remember the zeitgeist of American poetry 26 years ago. Before writing this post, I had no idea it was a curation still in existence today (though they are in sore need of a new website). Exciting. I'll need to find some copies.
Why do I bring this all up? I don't know, to be perfectly honest with you. I find myself revisiting the feeling I first got—something akin to running your hand over your favorite vinyl albums—when I remember these poems and read them again. The first time I read The Shipfitter's Wife in class is seared into my memory, as it blew apart every single thing I thought I knew about poetry (which wasn't much). It was a groundswell, to use a poem title of Mark Jarman. Like—I can almost remember being there, at the beginning, when I knew poetry was "it" for me. Not my origin story, but the part where the hero discovers his superpower.
What a perfect poem. Hell, why not post it.
The Shipfitter's Wife
By Dorianne Laux
I loved him most
when he came home from work,
his fingers still curled from fitting pipe,
his denim shirt ringed with sweat
and smelling of salt, the drying weeds
of the ocean. I'd go to where he sat
on the edge of the bed, his forehead
anointed with grease, his cracked hands
jammed between his thighs, and unlace
the steel-toed boots, stroke his ankles
and calves, the pads and bones of his feet.
Then I'd open his clothes and take
the whole day inside me — the ship's
gray sides, the miles of copper pipe,
the voice of the foreman clanging
off the hull's silver ribs. Spark of lead
kissing metal. The clamp, the winch,
the white fire of the torch, the whistle,
and the long drive home.
She took me in, too. This poem. What a banger.
