Poem Beginning with a Line by Frank Lima

By Lisa Jarnot b. 1967 Lisa Jarnot

And how terrific it is to write a radio poem

and how terrific it is to stand on the roof and

watch the stars go by and how terrific it is to be

misled inside a hallway, and how terrific it is

to be the hallway as it stands inside the house,

and how terrific it is, shaped like a telephone,

to be filled with scotch and stand out on the street,

and how terrific it is to see the stars inside the radios

and cows, and how terrific the cows are, crossing

at night, in their unjaundiced way and moving

through the moonlight, and how terrific the night is,

purveyor of the bells and distant planets, and how

terrific it is to write this poem as I sleep, to sleep

in distant planets in my mind and cross at night the

cows in hallways riding stars to radios at night, and

how terrific night you are, across the bridges, into

tunnels, into bars, and how terrific it is that you are

this too, the fields of planetary pull, terrific, living

on the Hudson, inside the months of spring, an

underwater crossing for the cows in dreams, terrific,

like the radios, the songs, the poem and the stars.

Lisa Jarnot, "A Poem Beginning with a Line by Frank Lima" from Ring of Fire, published in 2003 by Salt Publishing.

Source: Ring of Fire (Zoland Books, 2001)

Biography

Lisa Jarnot was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1967. After studying with the poet Robert Creeley at the University of Buffalo, she earned her MFA from Brown University. Her poetry is known for its startling yet inviting aesthetic. Jarnot has commented, “I think poems are always collage on some level… Collage is a way to force awareness out of the random flow of information that’s constantly bombarding us.” In addition to the . . .

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