Harriet

Posts Tagged ‘john n. morris’

Catherine Halley

Poem I Love: “For Julia, In the Deep Water” by John N. Morris

The first real live poem I ever remember hearing aloud is “For Julia, In the Deep Water” by John N. Morris. It’s about my friend Julia. Her dad was a poet, which was weird when you were a kid. If memory serves, Dr. Morris came to school and read this poem to our sixth grade class. The poem was first published in the New Yorker in 1976 and later in the volume “The Glass Houses”, after which I thought Billy Joel named his album. Although Morris published quite a bit in Poetry, he’s not in our online archive yet.

For Julia, In the Deep Water

The instructor we hire
because she does not love you
Leads you into the deep water,
The deep end
Where the water is darker—
Her open, encouraging arms
That never get nearer
Are merciless for your sake.

You will dream this water always
Where nothing draws nearer,
Wasting your valuable breath
You will scream for your mother—
Only your mother is drowning
Forever in the thin air
Down at the deep end.
She is doing nothing,
She never did anything harder.
And I am beside her.

I am beside her in this imagination.
We are waiting
Where the water is darker.
You are over your head,
Screaming, you are learning
Your way toward us,
You are learning how
In the helpless water
It is with our skill
We live in what kills us.

—John N. Morris

07.09.09 | COMMENTS (5)

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Anselm Berrigan
Abigail Deutsch
Tonya Foster
Melissa Friedling
John S. O'Connor
Barbara Jane Reyes
Amber Tamblyn
Edwin Torres

STAFF WRITERS

Cathy Halley
Michael Marcinkowski
Travis Nichols
Fred Sasaki
Don Share

RECENT COMMENTS

  • I must apologize: in my comment just above, I screwed up the link to ... MORE »
    Steven Fama | 11.21.09
  • Yes and yes to the marvels of Will Alexander’s poetry! How grand that you’re ... MORE »
    Steven Fama | 11.21.09
  • Hey, maybe she's making a grocery list, or one for party invitations. MORE »
    Wendy Babiak | 11.21.09
  • At this point there are so many flavors of Christianity that it could be said ... MORE »
    Wendy Babiak | 11.21.09
  • "... in the end translations are not designed for people who can read the original." There ... MORE »
    Jon Corelis | 11.21.09

Señor Smith to you. (1)
Vladimir, Ron, and Gregori (4)
dubious poetry: the palin comparison (3)
To Vaya in the Viva of Time (2)
Indie Publishing: Two Questions, Many More... (5)

RECENT POSTS

MONTHLY ARCHIVE

CATEGORY ARCHIVE

PREVIOUS WRITERS

Subscribe to the RSS feed.
What is RSS?

Subscribe to Poetry
Poetry Learning Lab
Poetry Tool

OR SEARCH

CHICAGO EVENTS

Poetry Off the Shelf: Reginald Gibbons
Oidipous Tyrannos: Oedipus the King

Poetry Off the Shelf: Reginald Gibbons Oidipous Tyrannos: Oedipus the King Thu, December 3rd, 6:00 pm
National Hellenic Museum
801 West Adams Street, 4th Floor
Free admission

MORE EVENTS »

Subscribe to Poetry

Copyright © 2009 Poetry Foundation   Contact: mail@poetryfoundation.org   Privacy Policy / Terms of Use
RSS Poetryfoundation.org article RSS.    RSS Magazine RSS.    RSS Blog RSS.