In 2005, I took a class with Liam Rector called “Poets in Their Youth,” which focused on those tragic titans Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Robert Lowell, Delmore Schwartz, and John Berryman. Liam’s favorite assignments took the form of lists, for example The 10 Best Poetry Books of the 20th Century or The 10 Best Poems of the 20th Century. I’m also a sucker for lists, so I jumped into these rankings with enthusiasm. After all, competitive poetry is like competitive yoga, i.e. awesome.
It’s the beginning of 2012, so there are plenty of Best Of lists to satisfy my appetite. Coldfront’s Top 30 Poetry Books of 2011 is terrific because it includes micro reviews for each choice. Even better, though, is David Lehman’s “Poetic Perfection: Three Favorite Poems of 2011,” which appeared on NPR’s website. You heard me right: 3! It’s the Olympics of Verse! Lehman also included thoughtful write-ups for each choice. I enjoyed these so much that I had an idea for a series of my own.
There are a lot of terrific places where you can find poem recommendations, but I love the idea of poem recommendations with brief introductions. Also, one of my New Year’s resolutions is to read more literary journals, so this project is self-serving, too. I am going to choose one poem to highlight every week of 2012, and this poem shall be dubbed Wednesday’s Poem.
Although, as stated above, I do enjoy a good death match, these will just be poems that I think are great.* Here is my very first Wednesday’s Poem:
The structure should probably be mentioned last when discussing Weston Cutter’s “Rural Causality,” and yet, it’s what I noticed first, thinking, how did he move from potheads to God in six sentences? Is it the snake that sneaks into the house? Is it the killing of said snake? There’s a sleight-of-hand in Cutter’s opening. While we’re watching a man unpack in the basement, a natural wonder brews up the stairs and out the front door. And it is the storm, not the piles of clothes, that leads us to conclude, “even without light / it’s possible to see what one believes in.”
"Rural Causality" by Weston Cutter was published on December 1, 2011 in The Nashville Review.
*Rules: 1) One poem will be chosen each week. 2) The poem will be from an online source, so that I can provide a link. 3) The poem must have been published recently, whatever that means. 4) No Guernica poems allowed, although I love every single line we publish. 5) If I choose a poem by someone I know, I will indicate so and try to choose a second poem by a stranger.