Poetry

I'm also reading this. A book of poems. About birds. Edited by Billy Collins. Illustrated by David Allen Sibley. Smashing.


Here's a poem by Ruth Schwartz. The beginning is regular poetry fodder, a little gritty, a little clever with words, and then, BAM, Schwartz rocks it with a simile that is beautiful and sad and just right. Poetry kicks ass.







The Swan at Edgewater Park

Isn't one of your prissy richpeople's swans
Wouldn't be at home on some pristine pond
Chooses the whole stinking shoreline, candy wrappers, condoms in its tidal fringe
Prefers to curve its muscular, slightly grubby neck into the body of a Great Lake,
Swilling whatever it is swans swill,
Chardonnay of algae with bouquet of crud,
While Clevelanders walk by saying Look at that big duck!
Beauty isn't the point here; of course the swan is beautiful,
But not like Lorie at 16, when
Everything was possible--no
More like Lorie at 27
Smoking away her days off in her dirty kitchen,
Her kid with asthma watching TV,
The boyfriend who doesn't know yet she's gonna
Leave him, washing his car out back--and
He's a runty little guy, and drinks too much, and
It's not his kid anyway, but he loves her, he
Really does, he loves them both--
That's the kind of swan this is.