[Music intro]

LYNNE THOMPSON: Hello! My name is Lynne Thompson, Poet Laureate for the City of Los Angeles and I’m so happy to welcome listeners to this installment of Poems on Air, a podcast supported by the Los Angeles Public Library. Every week, I’ll present the work of poets I admire, poets who you should know, and poets who have made a substantial and inimitable contribution to the art and craft of poetry.

LYNNE THOMPSON: There are some poets for whom poetry lovers await each new collection with eager anticipation. Linda Gregerson is one of those poets for me. Gregerson is the Caroline Walker Bynum Distinguished University Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Michigan and the recipient of awards and fellowships from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Poetry Society of America, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim, Mellon, Rockefeller Foundations, among others. Still, what most impresses is that she’s is a poet of generosity and grace whose poems reveal these too-rare qualities in every line.

LYNNE THOMPSON:Today’s poem is "Variations on a Phrase by Cormac McCarthy" by Linda Gregerson.

Variations on a Phrase by Cormac McCarthy

Like the carpenter whose tools were so dull
he couldn’t for the life of him devise a miter joint

Like the mattress left out on the curb all night

Like the woman
so fallen out of practice she can no longer sing from the hymnal
Like the smoker on the scaffolding

Like the sleeper on his cardboard on the pavement Like the rain

Like the dog whose human so loves her         Whose hip
will never heal again
Like the dog who trembles in pain on her leash whose human
so loves her he cannot bear to let her go

Like the takeout tossed into the bin for recycling              Like
the crosswalk the postbox             the flashing light

Like the beggar whose accordion only knows
the single musical phrase         Like the air
with its particulates           Like the idling bus

Like the cherries at the fruit stall          Like the cyclist     Like
the bus         Like the cyclist Like his cell phone    Like the bus

Like the beggar so bored with the music he
has never sounded out the rest of the song       Like the carpenter

whose work went so slowly for the dullness of his tools
he had no time to sharpen them

LYNNE THOMPSON: The Los Angeles Poet Laureate was created as a joint program between the City’s Department of Cultural Affairs and the Los Angeles Public Library and this podcast is available wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening!

[Music outro]

• Back to Poems on Air: Episode 68



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