The Sunday Poet: Llyn Clague

Llyn Clague is a poet based in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY.  His poems have been published widely, including in Ibbetson Street, Atlanta Review, Wisconsin Review, California Quarterly, Main Street Rag, New York Quarterly, and other magazines.  His seventh book, Hard-Edged and Childlike, was published by Main Street Rag in September, 2014.  Visit www.llynclague.com

Hunger In A New Yorker Poem

Visual, sensual, genteel,

the poem “Quahogs” in this upscale

mag jogs forward in a tide-steady

rhythm, measured, controlled,

describing clamming by the sea.

Auditory, olfactory, tactile,

in verbal as well as physical

markers, the verse progresses

from tidal flats to rake tines

to the character and color

of the shells: “Opal or pearl …,

their whorls and purple stains.”

Compact, concrete, picturesque:

it’s a best-of-friends evening

scene, with the “sky blazing,

its sinking orange fire.”

With even “the air in savor,”

delightful “precious butter”

drips on “the succulent

of the freezing dark sea.”

Sandily gritty, precisely

specific, grandiosely

the poem raises its sights

from one night’s appetite

for clams and friends by the sea

to the notion of a durable,

universal human hunger,

a “domain immeasurable.”

Delicately, tastily, prettily

worded, its private hankerings

lead to yearning for meaning,

universal, noble, eternal.

To the hunger, very measurable,

of people not clamming by the sea,

this verse avoids allusion,

artfully, assuredly, gently.

Poet Laureate of Somerville Gloria Mindock in The Somerville Times

The new Poet Laureate of Somerville, Gloria Mindock writes, " I will serve the Somerville community with regular office hours, hosting a poetry round table open to all writers, workshops and readings for the elderly, poetry with puppets for children, readings and an informative talk about El Salvador’s civil war and the Salvadoran writing today in our community, and the giving away of free books throughout Somerville as part of Read America Read. I look forward to representing the city of Somerville for the next two years.

The Sunday Poet: Zachary Bos

Poet Zachary Bos

"Zachary Bos studied poetry in the graduate creative writing program at Boston University. He is editor of nerobooks.org. 'Conscious Explanations' by Mark Schorr was the first book published by his Pen & Anvil Press."

Lascaux Massachusetts

                i.m. Mark Schorr

Now look with me away from this screen where

I have just read my friend this morning died.

Let us look through this window, through the air

that carries the scent of marsh mud and salt

as it combs across the marsh at low tide.

We are high here, and on an upper floor,

and down away from us the rows of hills

melt into the distance, becoming more

soft and gray the farther away they are.

Fog softens them too, removes their features.

The winter rain rubs them smooth. All nature

winds itself down as it moves. Years of rain

wash the gilding from the grooves of the names

carved into the stone of our monuments.

What we leave out gets lost, erodes away

and decays. What does remains are stories.

Their gold is renewed with each retelling.

They are kept safe in the confines of all

we sing or say with sincere meaning. They

are beyond the reach of rust, just as safe

as the dancing aurochsen breathed upon

the caverock walls by those ancient painters

who knew we must keep inside what we want

to save from weather and oblivion.

                                                [ January 3, 2017 ]