Friday, October 02, 2009

Poetry Friday: We're all writers here today

I used to post Richard Wilbur's The Writer about every four months. Then it stretched out to eight months.

It's been eight and a half months since the last posting, and today I'm starting a Writers' Group for my daughters and a couple of friends, so clearly, it's time for:

The Writer
by Richard Wilbur

In her room at the prow of the house
Where light breaks, and the windows are tossed with linden,
My daughter is writing a story.

I pause in the stairwell, hearing
From her shut door a commotion of typewriter-keys
Like a chain hauled over a gunwale.

Young as she is, the stuff
Of her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy:
I wish her a lucky passage.

But now it is she who pauses,
As if to reject my thought and its easy figure.
A stillness greatens, in which

The whole house seems to be thinking,

....

Read the rest of this perfect poem here ... listen to it here. And, for an interview with Richard Wilbur, go here, to the Poetry Foundation.

Find the Poetry Friday round up at Crossover today. 

4 comments:

Warren said...

Well I never encountered it before now, I must have not been reading your blog at the time it last appeared.

I simply LOVE this poem.

W

Pentimento said...

That is one wonderful poem, Karen. Thank you.

Beth said...

Thank you for posting this...I'd never read it! And it's so beautiful. I felt my breath catch on the line "clearing the sill of the world"...

laurasalas said...

Karen, you just go on and post this poem as often as you like. I love it and find something new and wonderful in it every single time!

Thank you.