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from the issue of January 25, 2007
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American Life in Poetry
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
While many of the poems we feature in this column are written in open forms, that's not to say I don't respect good writing done in traditional meter and rhyme. But a number of contemporary poets, knowing how a rigid attachment to form can take charge of the writing and drag the poet along behind, will choose, say, the traditional villanelle form, then relax its restraints through the use of broken rhythm and inexact rhymes. I'd guess that if I weren't talking about it, you might not notice, reading this poem by Floyd Skloot, that you were reading a sonnet.
Silent Music
My wife wears headphones as she plays
Chopin etudes in the winter light.
Singing random notes, she sways
in and out of shadow while night
settles. The keys she presses
make a soft
clack, the bench creaks when
her weight shifts,
golden cotton fabric ripples across
her shoulders, and the sustain
pedal clicks.
This is the hidden melody I know
so well, her body finding harmony in
the give and take of motion, her lyric
grace of gesture measured
against a slow
fall of darkness. Now stillness descends
to signal the end of her silent music.
Reprinted from "Prairie Schooner," Volume 80, Number 2 (Summer, 2006) by permission of the University of Nebraska Press. Copyright (c) 2006 by the University of Nebraska Press. Floyd Skloot's most recent book is "The End of Dreams," 2006, Louisiana State University Press. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the UNL Department of English. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.
GO TO: ISSUE OF JANUARY 25
ARTS HEADLINES FOR JANUARY 25
Exhibit focuses on relationship of comic, high art
American Life in Poetry
Artist-In-Residence begins work Feb. 1
Arts Entrepreneurship event Feb. 3
Fritz exhibit opens Jan. 26
Hillestad hosts student exhibit through Jan. 26
Keynote to join Feb. 1 Women: POV discussion
Moscow Festival Ballet presents 'Cinderella' performance Jan. 25
Oscar hopeful 'Last King of Scotland' plays the Ross
Rhythms of 'STOMP' to fill Lied Center
Roland to guide movie talk Jan. 28
Ross display showcases vintage Disney posters
School of Music's 'Celebration of American Song' is Jan. 29
732701S36635X
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