Poem-A-Day: Having Words by Alfred Corn

Having Words by Alfred Corn     They'd started meeting by night at the only local,  A seething crowd drawn from among the loudest  Words, swearing, conspiring, over tankards of ale.  In sour chiaroscuro their clenched faces by moments  Looked too grievance or was it expressive for comfort.    Rage drowns out background sounds such as summer  Crickets, the result, that one of them, in humid  Darkness, stops rasping his metal comb. It's clear  That the rally of Words will turn demonic,  That before night ends they'll be up in arms.    Even the rawest learner can in a clock tick  Become aware of the name it's called by. Which  He tries on  Cricket  Cricket  till he thinks: Your name  Amounts to a sound, nothing more. Trundling on  Towards the defiant Words, he says, No. No, I Am Deuce.        Copyright © 2013 by Alfred Corn. Used with permission of the author.     About This Poem "This is one of those poems whose source and meaning remain uncertain even to the author. I hadn't planned to write it, wrote it quickly, and don't know how to paraphrase it. Most poems like that go into the circular file, but friends have said they liked it, so I've decided to trust their judgment and let it stand."    --Alfred Corn Most Recent Book by Corn Tables (Press 53, 2013)                          July 3, 2013 Alfred Corn is the author of numerous books of poems including, most recently, Tables (Press 53, 2013). He has taught writing at Yale University, Columbia University, Oklahoma State University, and UCLA. Corn lives in Hopkinton, Rhode Island. Related Poems Poem by James Schuyler Tonight No Poetry Will Serve by Adrienne Rich please advise stop [I was dragging a ladder slowly over stones stop] by Rusty Morrison Poem-A-Day Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-A-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on  weekdays and classic poems  on weekends. Browse the  Poem-A-Day Archive.         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.

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