Friends, I’m pretty sure I recommend Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry column at least half a dozen times a year, but here I am, at it again.
Last week’s column featured a short poem by Meg Kearney called “Loneliness,” a vignette that illuminates the title emotion.
It’s a little slice out of time; the poem could be describing something that happened last autumn or something out of a fairytale.
And the details are so effective at placing us in the moment: the goose’s foot that feels like the little girl’s hand, the V of the geese that is “two fingers / spread against a caution-yellow sky.” Two fingers in a V is the sign for peace, which the poet plays against the poem’s violence (the father is “about to bring down his third goose” of the day), echoed in the girl’s gesture of kindness that is a severed foot.
What do you think of the poem?
Rosemary and Reading Glasses 
It’s a nice kind of melancholy poem, very quiet and still on the service but busy underneath
Exactly! There’s a lot of depth to it.
Words are amazing. 🙂 That poem is simple and beautiful, and meaningful too.
I’m glad you liked it!
Do you listen to the New Yorker: Poetry podcast? If you don’t, you should 🙂
Their second to last one was about Anne Carson!
I confess here that I don’t listen to any podcasts—there just isn’t a part of my day when I’m doing something (like commuting or running) that would be conducive to paying attention to one. I wish there were, because that one would definitely go at the top of my list!
Three cheers for the strange man.
Indeed.
Sort of mixed emotions, since hunting isn’t my favorite activity. But it is melancholy and a little touching.
I don’t think you’re meant to like the hunting.