Prologue to a Bidding

By Forrest Gander b. 1956 Forrest Gander

Though each single life occurs

in a series of occasions

striking only by what

blurry context

precedes them

So come to know

what I should have wanted

to say—from

an internal perspective

there is no series. Only

event. Music knocks

us down. His brow

shadowing the guitar player’s

accipitrine eyes. Tile roofs

glistening under rain.

On a dirt road

a resuscitative walk.

The kite hits

the copperhead. Cicadas

halt. The air blanks.

And strangers crane up

from whatever they are doing

to meet your gaze as you go past,

thinking, I am with you, I am

you.

Forrest Gander, “Prologue to a Bidding” from Lynchburg. Copyright © 1993 by Forrest Gander. All rights are controlled by the University of Pittsburgh Press. Reprinted with the permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press, www.upress.pitt.edu.

Source: Lynchburg (1993)

Biography

Born in California’s Mojave Desert, poet Forrest Gander grew up in Virginia and attended the College of William & Mary, where he majored in geology. After receiving an MA in literature from San Francisco State University, Gander moved to Mexico, then to Arkansas, where his poetry—informed by his knowledge of geology—turned its attention to landscape as foreground or source of action.

Gander’s books of poetry include Eye Against . . .

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