“My First Memory (of Librarians),” Nikki Giovanni May 4, 2008

This is my first memory:

A big room with heavy wooden tables that sat on a creaky

wood floor

A line of green shades–banker’s lights–down the center

Heavy oak chairs that were too low or maybe I was simply

too short

For me to sit in and read

So my first book was always too big

In the foyer up four stairs a semi-circle desk presided

To the left side the card catalogue

On the right newspapers draped over what looked like

a quilt rack

Magazines face out from the wall

The welcoming smile of my librarian

The anticipation in my heart

All those books–another world–just waiting

At my fingertips.

From Acolytes. William Marrow, 2007. To hear the podcast, go here!

“Possum Crossing,” Nikki Giovanni May 4, 2008

Backing out the driveway

the car lights cast an eerie glow

in the morning fog centering

on movement in the rain slick street

Hitting brakes I anticipate a squirrel or a cat or sometimes

a little raccoon

I once braked for a blind little mole who try though he did

could not escape the cat toying with his life

Mother-to-be possum occasionally lopes home…being

naturally…slow her condition makes her even more ginger

We need a sign POSSUM CROSSING to warn coffee-gurgling neighbors:

we share the streets with more than trucks and vans and

railroad crossings

All birds being kin of dinosaurs

think themselves invincible and pay no heed

to the rolling wheels while they dine

on an unlucky rabbit

I hit brakes for the flutter of the lights hoping it’s not deer

or a skunk or a groundhog

coffee splashes over the cup which I quickly put away from me

and into the empty passenger seat

I look…

relieved and exasperated…

to discover I have just missed a big fat wet leaf

struggling…to lift itself into the wind

and live

From Quilting The Black-Eyed Pea, HarperCollins, 2003. To hear the podcast, go here!

“Fishing on the Susquehanna in July,” Billy Collins May 4, 2008

I have never been fishing on the Susquehanna

or any other river for that matter

to be perfectly honest.

Not in July or any month

have I had the pleasure–if it is a pleasure–

of fishing on the Susquehanna.

I am more likely to be found

in a quiet room like this one–

a painting of a woman on the wall,

A bowl of tangerines on the table–

trying to manufacture the sensation

of fishing on the Susquehanna.

There is little doubt

that others have been fishing

on the Susquehanna,

rowing upstream in a wooden boat,

sliding the oars under the water

then raising them to drip in the light.

But the nearest I have ever come to

fishing on the Susquehanna

was one afternoon in a museum in Philladelphia

when I balanced a little egg of time

in front of a painting

in which that river curled around a bend

under a blue cloud-ruffled sky,

dense trees along the banks,

and a fellow with a red bandanna

sitting in a small, green

flat-bottom boat

holding the thin whip of a pole.

That is something I am unlikely

ever to do, I remember

saying to myself and the person next to me.

Then I blinked and moved on

to other American scenes

of haystacks, water whitening over rocks,

even one of a brown hare

who seemed so wired with alertness

I imagined him springing right out of the frame.

From Picnic, Lightening, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998. To hear the podcast, go here!

“Blessing the Boats”, Lucille Clifton May 4, 2008

(at St. Mary’s)

may the tide

that is entering even now

the lip of our understanding

carry you out

beyond the face of fear

may you kiss

the wind then turn from it

certain that it will

love your back may you

open your eyes to water

water waving forever

and may you in your innocence

sail through this to that

From Quilting: Poems 1987-1990; BOA Editions, 2001. To listen to the podcast, go here!

“Introduction to Poetry,” Billy Collins May 4, 2008

I ask them to take a poem

and hold it up to the light

like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem

and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s room

and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope

and force a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose

to find out what it really means.

From The Apple That Astonished Paris, University of Arkansas Press, 1996.

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