Sandra McPherson's Swan Scythe Press is recommending its September delight, the new collection from James DenBoer. Here's the press announcement -- I find a strong connection between DenBoer's voice and the Vermont that I love:
James DenBoer
Stonework: Selected Poems
http://www.swanscythe.com/books/stonework.html
Swan Scythe Press has published this volume as
The Walter Pavlich Memorial Poetry Award 2007
from 4 first-rate collections.
James DenBoer is one of my favorite poets—
He is the awake one, and vulnerable to his awakeness. In this physical
world he has ties to the comic and to the suffering. He
pays tribute, he asks for counsel, and a great spirit is born
and sustained. Stonework exhibits the bonding of difficult material
to lucid expression. What an artistic fulfillment! —Sandra McPherson
Please order from our press,
http://www.swanscythe.com/books.html
Cover Art: Clarence Major
OUR OWN WATER
Our own water, from our own well,
hard, mineral, rusty—
turning the tap just to taste it,
I can feel cold behind my eyes,
can smell how many miles
it ran from high snow
past deep and mountain quail.
I have to sit down for a minute
when I taste bear dung
in our water—it’s the old male,
brown, dusty, back of Wellman Burn.
Our water has moved pebbles
shaped like hearts (I found one
in San Ysidro Creek), boulders,
whole mountains, shaped
the earth—taste it, taste it!
In my blue enameled cup, our water
is white as milk at first;
clearing, it whispers at the edges
of my mouth, runs in my neck
under my shirt, cool as a lizard.
Sometimes I go in the kitchen,
only to taste our water; I have to sit down
and look out the window for a while,
watch air opening leaves.
It turns down the drain
with the turning earth, our water,
running away to rain.
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