in the Cannon towel, newly washed,
that I rub my body with each
morning,
in the chapel of eggs I cook
each morning,
in the outcry from the kettle
that heats my coffee
each morning,
in the spoon and the chair
that cry, “hello there, Anne”
each morning,
in the godhead of the table
that I set my silver, plate, cup upon
each morning.Sexton’s poem artfully outlines the ten-
sion between daily routine and the sense of
intention required to notice what’s good while
harnessed to habit.
In this way, true gratitude becomes an act
of imagination, an enterprise particularly suit-
ed to poets. “Gratitude is a cherishing of what
is, contrasted with what has been or could be,”
the book’s editor, Emily Fragos, tells readers.
“It is both an emotion and a practice, and it
necessarily includes keen awareness of the
sorrow and pain that give pleasure its value.”
“Poems of Gratitude” is a tonic for the times
- a reminder that the present, so fraught with
the complications and conflicts of the human
condition, just might be the best moment of all.
r Danny Heitman, a columnist for The
Advocate newspaper in Louisiana, is the
author of “A Summer of Birds: John James
Audubon at Oakley House.”
INVOCATION, 1926
Bless the laborers whose faces
we do not see – like the girl my
grandmother was,walking in the rails home; bless
us that we remember.- Natasha Trethewey,
from ‘Invocation, 1926’
EYE LEVEL
By Jenny XieChinese-born, US-raised Jenny Xie was awarded
the 2017 Walt Whitman Award by the Academy of
American Poets for her verse straddling two worlds.
In Eye Level, she writes of the Lunar New Year (“Make
what you will out of ritual/ the relative with the steadi-
est hands cuts the hair of her cousins”) soon to be
interrupted by a call to other lands (“Envelopes arrive
from a university overseas,/ a new life activated”). Xie uses language that is
powerful and precise not only to explore the pains of cultural assimilation
(“The new country is ill fitting/ lined with cheap polyester, soiled at the
sleeves”) but also other frustrations of the human experience (“If only the
journey between two people/ didn’t take a lifetime.”) – Marjorie KeheCOLLECTED POEMS
By Galway KinnellGalway Kinnell, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet
who died in 2014 at 87, had many ostensible subjects,
but his preoccupation was mortality. His poems often
bear a reminder that any moment, however grand,
is also bittersweet since nothing lasts. In “A Walk
in the Country,” where his companion sees lovely
grass, Kinnell remembers that at some point, most
of us will rest underneath it. Like the elegiac Thomas
Hardy, he’s a beautifully lucid poet best sampled in
small doses. Collected Poems is a book to dip into, with
wistful pleasure, again and again. – Danny HeitmanYESTERDAY I WAS THE MOON
By Noor UnnaharPakistani blogger Noor Unnahar has won hun-
dreds of thousands of fans worldwide as an Instagram
poet. Yesterday I Was the Moon, her first book, hums
with youthful energy and bemused attempts to make
sense of the world around her. Unnahar mixes simple
sketches with pithy verse as she ponders ways to
communicate (“my homeland gifted me/ a language
with soft corners”), miracles (“this world isn’t as/
generous as it appears”), and reasons for joy (“last
night I whispered/ a thank you note to the universe/
for it made oceans and stars/ equally beautiful and
accessible/ for all of us”). To read Unnahar is to love
her. – Marjorie KeheSHORT TAKES