This is poetry second on WPSU – a weekly program that includes the work of up to date Pennsylvania poets. Your host is poet and creator Marjorie Maddox, a 2023 Monson Arts Fellow, and professor of English and inventive writing on the Lock Haven campus of Commonwealth University.
In Greek Mythology, 9 muses presided over music, dance, artwork, and poetry—but in addition over such disciplines as comedy, astronomy, and historical past. Are you drawn extra to a well-crafted joke? A fishing pole? What about. . . a garter snake? Whatever your personal supply of inspiration, hold listening.
Judith Sornberger lives on the facet of a mountain outdoors Wellsboro, Pennsylvania. She is a professor emerita of Mansfield University of Pennsylvania the place she taught within the English Department and based the Women’s Studies Program. Sornberger is the creator of 4 full-length poetry collections: Angel Chimes: Poems of Advent and Christmas(Shanti Arts), I Call to You from Time (Wipf & Stock), Practicing the World (CavanKerry), and Open Heart (Calyx Books).
We don’t at all times select how, who, or what conjures up us. In her latest assortment, Judith Sornberger takes us on a tour of sudden muses: a black bear, a witch, a goldfish, a mermaid, an elderly bicycle owner, and even a garter snake. Listen because the poet examines this skin-shedding reptile as a supply of, and metaphor for, inspiration. As she performs off the phrase “line,” one picture transforms into one other. Ultimately, in accordance with Sornberger, it’s the strategy of creation that reunites, repairs, and renews the world.
Here’s —
The Muse, as Garter Snake, Drops You a Line
The Muse, as Garter Snake, Drops You a Line,
leaves her discarded pores and skin beside your door—
lengthy tunnel of parchment you could possibly learn
as a sinuous pause in a melodic line—
a reminiscence you comply with, flute to lips,
and breathe into new life.
You might learn it as a line, in a sketch
of ink and pen, turning into a small boat
almost hidden within the reeds—so far-off
you possibly can’t see the place the fisherman’s
line sinks into the stream. Yet you are feeling
the mild tug, the nibble within the darkness
of one thing eager to be born,
and your pores and skin prickles just like the water’s
as you pull sun-spangled scales
and splashing anguish to the floor.
You might learn it as a seam you may sew
between international locations of pigments and patterns,
between centuries and seasons,
between this life and the following one.
A seam to reunite, in new designs,
small items of the world because it unravels.
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Originally revealed in Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry
Listen for Poetry Moment with Marjorie Maddox Mondays throughout Morning Edition and All Things Considered on WPSU. You can extra episodes at wpsu.org/poetrymoment. Our theme music is by Eric Ian Farmer.
