Beginners by Michael Klein

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend January 30, 2017   Beginners   Michael Klein

Truth went through a leaky funnel starting in late 1963   that blade-lit afternoon Gary Orrin laughed at Kennedy's murder   bleeding through the static of P.S. 41's cheap PA. There's Greenwich            Village—   a drowsy dandelion—I called it once—and there   are the heartsick monitors of afternoons.    My mother is late to pick me up, again. She's almost better,   but will never find a way to manage the cure. Outside American family        life,   nothing happens for years until OJ's glove: interspersed with some              other   sloppy American truth. If I didn't know everything I already know   I could count on the dog while she rifles through her morning bowl   in the next room. Poor Ruby. She knows more than I do.   She is eating the world to save it.            Copyright © 2017 Michael Klein. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "Like a number of poems I've written, I had the last line first and worked backward. The poem looks at relative truth and how, in youth (troubling for me), the examples were somewhat dire—national life and personal life seemed weirdly connected. That connection has also been a huge hallmark of 2016, personally. And Ruby coming into the poem, in present time, is a reminder for me that hunger for life is a kind of hope for the future." —Michael Klein   Michael Klein is the author of When I Was a Twin (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2015). He teaches at Hunter College and lives in New York City.     Poetry by Klein   When I Was a Twin (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2015) "The Blessing of the Old Woman, the Tulip, and the Dog" by Alicia Ostriker "Everyday Escapes" by Dean Young "First Gestures" by Julia Spicher Kasdorf Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. If you enjoy Poem-a-Day, please consider making a donation to help make it possible. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038