Song

By W. D. Snodgrass 1926–2009

Sweet beast, I have gone prowling,

a proud rejected man

who lived along the edges

catch as catch can;

in darkness and in hedges

I sang my sour tone

and all my love was howling

conspicuously alone.

I curled and slept all day

or nursed my bloodless wounds

until the squares were silent

where I could make my tunes

singular and violent.

Then, sure as hearers came

I crept and flinched away.

And, girl, you've done the same.

A stray from my own type,

led along by blindness,

my love was near to spoiled

and curdled all my kindness.

I find no kin, no child;

only the weasel's ilk.

Sweet beast, cat of my own stripe,

come and take my milk.

Source: Not for Specialists: New and Selected Poems (BOA Editions Ltd., 2006)

Biography

W. D. Snodgrass is often credited with being one of the founding members of the "confessional" school of poetry, even though he dislikes the term confessional and does not regard his work as such. Nevertheless, his Pulitzer Prize-winning first collection, Heart's Needle, has had a tremendous impact on that particular facet of contemporary poetry. "Like other confessional poets, Snodgrass is at pains to reveal the repressed, . . .

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