Poems : Harriet the Blog : The Poetry Foundation

Posts Tagged ‘Poems’

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 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (5)

Catherine Halley

Poem I Love: “You, Therefore” by Reginald Shepherd

I knew Reginald ages ago in Iowa City. As my mother’d say (hi Mom!), he was quite a character. In this poem and in others, I admire his use of assonance, alliteration, internal near rhyme and…botany. In his first book, Some Are Drowning, doesn’t he use the names of flowers to describe Kaposi’s sarcoma blossoming on someone’s skin?

You, Therefore

For Robert Philen

by Reginald Shepherd

You are like me, you will die too, but not today:

you, incommensurate, therefore the hours shine:

if I say to you “To you I say,” you have not been

set to music, or broadcast live on the ghost

radio, may never be an oil painting or

Old Master’s charcoal sketch: you are

a concordance of person, number, voice,

and place, strawberries spread through your name

as if it were budding shrubs, how you remind me

of some spring, the waters as cool and clear

(late rain clings to your leaves, shaken by light wind),

which is where you occur in grassy moonlight:

and you are a lily, an aster, white trillium

or viburnum, by all rights mine, white star

in the meadow sky, the snow still arriving

from its earthwards journeys, here where there is

no snow (I dreamed the snow was you,

when there was snow), you are my right,

have come to be my night (your body takes on

the dimensions of sleep, the shape of sleep

becomes you): and you fall from the sky

with several flowers, words spill from your mouth

in waves, your lips taste like the sea, salt-sweet (trees

and seas have flown away, I call it

loving you): home is nowhere, therefore you,

a kind of dwell and welcome, song after all,

and free of any eden we can name

Find this poem and more about the poet Reginald Shepherd here. Read Reginald’s Harriet blog here.

06.25.09 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (7)

Posts Tagged ‘Poems’

Catherine Halley

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

Catherine Halley

Poem I Love: “You, Therefore” by Reginald Shepherd

You, Therefore

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Posts Tagged ‘Poems’

Catherine Halley

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

Catherine Halley

Poem I Love: “You, Therefore” by Reginald Shepherd

You, Therefore

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

STAFF WRITERS

RECENT COMMENTS

RECENT POSTS

MONTHLY ARCHIVE

CATEGORY ARCHIVE

PREVIOUS WRITERS

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