Poetry Friday: Todd Boss

My Day-After-Thanksgivings are always busy with leftover-pie breakfast, family, turkey-sandwich lunch, family, jigsaw puzzle, dogs, family, turkey-soup dinner, etc. So I missed posting for Poetry Friday at the normal time. But since I haven't gone to bed yet, it's still Friday for me, yes, even if it's the wee (and bleary-eyed) hours of Saturday morning? Here's a poem I happened on and want to share:

The World Is in Pencil

—not pen. It’s got

that same silken

dust about it, doesn’t it,

that same sense of

having been roughed

onto paper even  

as it was planned.

It had to be a labor

of love. It must’ve

taken its author some

time, some shove.

I’ll bet it felt good

in the hand—the o

of the ocean, and

the and and the and

of the land.

                             by Todd Boss 

That is so carefully crafted. It does just what I want a poem to do, and just what I would love my poems to do: it hides the rhyme internally, subtly, and it has both gravitas and playfulness. The poet and critic Tony Hoagland, whose opinion I respect, says this of Todd Boss's second book, Pitch: "There is a rich physicality in all of Todd Boss’s poems, a reverent  gusto for representing the tactile aspects of human life. His poems are about matter in motion—apple-slices, Chopin, horses, light, and people. What makes Boss much more than a journalist is the great adroitness and physicality with which sound bounces around inside his language, in strong rhyme, all kinds of rhythm, and formal games. The poems in Pitch are never pretentious but always acrobatic, sensuous, technically inventive, muscular and fun.”

Todd Boss

 Be sure to look up Boss's first book as well - it's titled yellowrocket. Wonderful stuff.
---------------------------------
Poetry Friday was hosted by Carol at Carol's Corner this week.  Head over there to see what other people have posted. 

POETRY FRIDAY: THE WORK OF TODD BOSS

Minnesota poet Todd Boss and his book YELLOWROCKET

 BRRRRRRR - it is cold in Seattle right now. Maybe a cold snap? Well not really, but I love the phrase "cold snap," so let's pretend. In honor of the dip into freezing temperatures, here's my contribution to Poetry Friday - Todd Boss's poem Icicles (from his collection YELLOWROCKET - see also the masterful poem One Can Miss Mountains, over at The New Yorker's web site.) I'd love to get the poetry of Todd Boss into the hands of every Senior in every high school English class in America, if only to remind them  - as they head out into the world -  that poetry can be fun, inventive, imaginative, crazy, musical and still be deeply heartfelt and smart.

ICICLES

are made of melt.
The same course
that makes them
takes them away.

They stay as long
as the temperature
lets them, and go
by the same way,

and in the same
direction. On
that intersection
their existence

hangs -- as hangs
a heart by how
and for how long
what's felt is felt.

Boss's new book, PITCH, will be released in February, 2012.

---------------
The Poetry Friday round-up today is being hosted by Robyn Black Hood at Read, Write, Howl. Head over there to see what other people have posted.