I’ve been subscribing to Garrison Keillor’s “Writer’s Almanac” emails since I moved out of my tent in Western Massachusetts. I used to listen to it every day on NPR up there on my way to work. Poetry is, of course, always a really awesome way to start the day. Especially when it’s read to you by Mr. Keillor.
Yet now, four years later, I get a little annoyed by the daily email. Reading it is different than getting it read to you. Sure, you can click the audio stream. Most days I don’t read it. I mean, it’s still funny and good. Garrison gives us a little insider info on some cool historical figures. Reads a poem. And that’s that. Wipes the hands, calls it a day. But you know how it is when an email comes in every single day. Starts to look a lot like spam.
Long story short, for some reason I read today’s, and it struck me. A real Poverty Jet Set poem. Maybe even our theme poem. If this has happened to you (and hopefully you learned your lesson!), you’re automatically IN.
Poem: “Jet Lag” by Eve Robillard, from When Gertrude Married Alice. © Parallel Press. Reprinted with permission.
Jet Lag
He flies over the ocean to see his girl, his Sorbonne
girl, his ginger-skinned girl waiting for him in the City
of Light. Everywhere river and almost-spring gardens,
everywhere bridges and rainy statues. Streets going
nowhere, streets going on all night. I love you my mona
my lisa, my cabbage, my gargoyle, Degas’ little dancer
in dawn’s ragged gown. But on the third day she
picks up her books, tells him she needs to study:
she adores this town, she’s not coming home in May, she’s
going to stay all summer. Lowers her morning-calm eyes.
He’s all right in the cab, all right on the plane droning
him home in only three hours American — key in his lock now
his tick-tock apartment, shiver his shadow, his need
to sleep. Then with a tiredness washing over and
over him and through his raveling bones
he begins to know.
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