4th Annual NAPOMO 30/30/30 :: Day 27 :: Christine Trudeau on James Welch
[line]I was assigned James Welch’s Winter in the Blood a little over a year ago for a class. I was in shock to have just discovered Welch, a key figure for the Native American Renaissance, in my senior year as a
POETRY MONTH 30/30/30: Inspiration, Community, Tradition: DAY 18:: Ben Wiessner on Dean Young
Before Fall Higher’s table of contents Dean Young booms out a call to action:
hark, dumbass,
the error is not to fall
but to fall from no height
As soon as I came across those lines I snapped a grainy picture on my prehistoric flip-phone and sent them to the person who knows most clearly my errors, how much of that dumbass I can be.
This book belonged in my apartment. It was meant to be poured over on a couch, read with dinner. His words and I line-danced toward and from each other, catching promising glimpses between partner switches:
When you finally admit you’re broken,
Can I come back up now? asks the chair
with its leg snapped in the basement
and Don’t even get me started, says the sky.
- (“Irrevocable Ode”)