William Stafford

from Youth

“Remember when shadows played

because there were leaves in the wind?

And people came to our door from a land

where stories were real?

Barefood we traveled the roads

all summer. At night we drew pictures

of home with smoke from the chimney.

And we frowned when we read,

so we could understand.”

A few nights ago paging between the Poems of William Stafford’s 

 the Way It Is;  Graywolf Press ( Stories That Could be True; 

Harpercollins is also excellent, there is some overlap of poems) 

and John Koethe’s North Point North; Harpercollins, some poems 

I love. some not so much, I found two the two accounts of childhood 

I have used in this post. I have been asked why I like poetry so much 

and while reflecting on these choices I came up with the following.

I enjoy the brevity of poems. the beautiful language and imagery, 

their ability to change direction, the freedom from the restrictions 

of (good) fiction like plot, continuity, characterization, point of view. 

Poetry on the other hand easily weaves together memory, sensory 

experience, moods, descriptions, sounds, disparate phrases, points 

of view, changes in tone, dialogue into an instrument that closely 

mimics the way our mind interacts with the world around it, with 

all our changing moods, flashes of memory or nostalgia, moments 

of despair or of epiphany. I see the best poems not as fictional 

narratives but as vessels in which the feelings, the memories, 

the observations and experiences of both the poet and the reader 

combine to allow the reader to examine the world and their

 experiences  within it with fresh insights and understanding.

from From the Porch

by John Koethe

“As though one’s childhood were a small midwestern town

Some forty years ago, before the elm trees died.

September was a modern classroom and the latest cars,

That made a sort of futuristic dream, circa 1955.

The earth was still uncircled. You could set your course

On the day after tomorrow. And children fell asleep

To the lullaby of people murmuring softly in the kitchen,

While a breeze rustled the pages of Life magazine,

And the wicker chairs stood empty on the screened-in porch.”