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Reading Lists

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Adrienne Rich

Wrote about Aunt Jennifer’s

Rings and tigers on screens

And diving into a wreck

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These were the poems

We interns were assigned

To read and teach,

And that was all right

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But reading on one’s own

With no one’s rubric but

One’s own

Is so much better;

I’m sure we were supposed

To instill some kind of

Critical process regarding

Life and reading in it

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But I’m not sure

How well that worked,

What kind of processes

We might have instilled,

What seeds grown,

What personal

Allegiances to one’s own

Mind and heart

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So was a new generation of

New readers of poetry

Begun?  Has it flourished?

Are they among the ones who

Turn to poetry when there’s

A tragedy?

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(read up how we

took to verse after the

Towers fell)

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I like Rich, though that

Would not be enough

In that we were serving

A learning process

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It was a small, state school;

I never heard from anyone

Again, though nothing and

No one is due me

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A state away and many

Years, I wish us well

And to take up small books

Of miracles from time to time;

I do this, Mary Oliver’s

Most recently

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C L Couch

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Photo by Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash

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