Happy Belated 4th of July! This week I'm shortening Hyperbole by chopping out some of my regular columns. It's late and I just returned from Frederick, Maryland, but I do have some updates and new pages I want to let you know about. Enjoy!

Table of Contents

1. New World Class Poetry Pages
2. New World Class Poetry Toolbar Features
3. American Life in Poetry by Ted Kooser
4. New World Class Poetry Blog Posts
5. Are You Subscribed?
6. World Class Poetry Networking

New World Class Poetry Pages

I've added two new pages this week. Actually, they're book reviews. You've got to read these:

• Review of Eccentriq Love
• Review of Transiens Essendum

Naturally, I've updated the poetry reviews page as well.

New Poetry Toolbar Features

This week's new addition to the World Class Poetry Toolbar is Mannequin Envy to the online publications menu. Man, you've just got to love those online lit journals!

American Life in Poetry: Column 171

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

Sometimes I think that people are at their happiest when they're engaged in activities close to the work of the earliest humans: telling stories around a fire, taking care of children, hunting, making clothes. Here an Iowan, Ann Struthers, speaks of one of those original tasks, digging in the dirt.

Planting the Sand Cherry

Today I planted the sand cherry with red leaves--
and hope that I can go on digging in this yard,
pruning the grape vine, twisting the silver lace
on its trellis, the one that bloomed
just before the frost flowered over all the garden.
Next spring I will plant more zinnias, marigolds,
straw flowers, pearly everlasting, and bleeding heart.
I plant that for you, old love, old friend,
and lilacs for remembering. The lily-of-the-valley
with cream-colored bells, bent over slightly, bowing
to the inevitable, flowers for a few days, a week.
Now its broad blade leaves are streaked with brown
and the stem dried to a pale hair.
In place of the silent bells, red berries
like rose hips blaze close to the ground.
It is important for me to be down on my knees,
my fingers sifting the black earth,
making those things grow which will grow.
Sometimes I save a weed if its leaves
are spread fern-like, hand-like,
or if it grows with a certain impertinence.
I let the goldenrod stay and the wild asters.
I save the violets in spring. People who kill violets
will do anything.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2004 by Ann Struthers, whose most recent book of poetry is "What You Try To Tame," The Coe Review Press, 2004. Poem reprinted from "Stoneboat & Other Poems," by Ann Struthers, Iowa Poets Series, The Pterodactyl Press, 1988, by permission of the writer. Introduction copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

New World Class Poetry Blog Posts

I know you'll love this selection from this week's WCP blog posts:

• An Ode To Frederick - in which I discuss the form I invented called a Crescendant
• Should Poets Be Twits?
• Ezra Pound On Happy Pills
• Watch Out, Man, Don't Trip Over That Post Avant!

Are You Subscribed?

World Class Poetry Networking

my 'read' shelf:

toolbar powered by Conduit

Call For Submissions!

Submit your poetry articles to World Class Poetry. Use the WCP article submission form.