[Image by artist and photographer Nick Dormand]

You never do find out what makes you tick, and after a while it’s unimportant.
― Norman Mailer

Norman Mailer is shadow boxing at the curb.
The curb is cornered, no place to duck
and Norm’s going in for the knockout. He works
the inside, pounding the mortar. He tucks

his chin tight like an owl, squares his shoulders
where the tar and the cement meet.
The light is falling, both traffic and sky. The smolder
of taverns and cafes begins to sing

in neon. The blurs in storefront windows glow
like ribbons. The curb lays back. Shadows fail
and Norman boxes in the evening’s dark scene.
Suddenly there are no curbs or sidewalks. Now

the stars glide and arc in their contrails
and Norman concedes to the quiet breeze.

© Michael Catherwood

The first official notice of publication, I think. I am so pleased and thankful. See more here.

My first year teaching at UNO,
I gave an exam in my fiction course.
One of the students, a little below
a B so far, chose Joyce’s “The Dead”
for his test topic, the lyrical force
of the ending, its melancholy awe:
“It would put your mind in
a wonder,” he said.
I found my vocation in Omaha.

© Michael Skau

On the last day of school
four in a cherry red Ford
cruising topdown
long hair flying

wind lifting their laughter
their spirits rising now
this day this time
flying

© J.J. McKenna

* A reminder that this series of ‘Nebraska’ poets, the State of my birth, includes poets/writers also born in Nebraska, or linked through residence, education and/or teaching there.

In all cases copyright remains with the authors. Having not sought permission to post, I trust writers are nonetheless happy to be represented in this celebration of their ‘roots’ and work, but I would obviously remove any such posts were I asked to do so by the authors.

(for K)

This morning was good for me,
but not you,

my walking in to our town,
November-crisp and a clear blue sky with sun shining,

passing by that one other thing
you wanted to see on this visit –

too late now with your boarding the long flight back home
as I write –

such an enormous new-build of older people’s apartments
to dwarf the thatched restaurant by its side and

those houses directly opposite the stream,
their years of a beautiful view you’ll once have seen

also completely destroyed,
walls of red brick never to be pretty like the

fallen autumn leaves on that footbridge
over the river as I returned home,

so many still fresh, if pastel, and the few
vibrant orange

or as I still see this
wonderful colour.

Wake to find everything black
what was white, all the vice
versa—white maids on TV, black

sitcoms that star white dwarfs
cute as pearl buttons. Black Presidents,
Black Houses. White horse

candidates. All bleach burns
clothes black. Drive roads
white as you are, white songs

on the radio stolen by black bands
like secret pancake recipes, white back-up
singers, ball-players & boxers all

white as tar. Feathers on chickens
dark as everything, boiling in the pot
that called the kettle honky. Even

whites of the eye turn dark, pupils
clear & changing as a cat’s.
Is this what we’ve wanted

& waited for? to see snow
covering everything black
as Christmas, dark pages written

white upon? All our eclipses bright,
dark stars shooting across pale
sky, glowing like ash in fire, shower

every skin. Only money keeps
green, still grows & burns like grass
under dark daylight.

Kevin Young, “Negative” from To Repel Ghosts: The Remix. Copyright © 2005 by Kevin Young, published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

Further to yesterday’s posting, this is a recent poem that revisits the horse-witch phenomenon, and it is in my collection Farming the Poems that can be downloaded for free here.

This poem refers to Arthur Brown, the farmer and horseman who with his wife owned the cottage I first lived in, on my own at age 17, in Belstead Village, Suffolk.  He and Maud were the most wonderful, loving and inspirational surrogate parents to a wild, independent teenager: sweet, honest, generous, wise. More details at the above link.

I came across the new SPS site quite by accident just now though a tweet in my twitter feed, liked by someone I follow.

The Crabbe Memorial Poetry prize represents a wonderful memory where back in 1979 the accolade of winning was one of those significant prompts to my feeling like a writer, providing as it did support to my sense of purpose. It is no different today when editors/publishers support work and continue furthering the writer’s sense of that purpose [I am short-handing, but am not embarrassed to acknowledge the connection].

I moved out of Suffolk in 1976 so this competition win of 1979 was in my penultimate year of studying at university when I was also beginning to have poems published – just a few.

It was also pleasing to see on the SPS site its writer/member profiles which included names of  those who were in a reading/sharing/critiquing postal poetry group I belonged to in 1979/80. This was mainly most supportive, though occasionally brutal! It too is an important part of my life in general – that Suffolk connection – as well as a writer.

Horse-Witch can be read on the new site here.