Sunday, March 8, 2009

SHOWCASE SUNDAY


The book is here! The book is here!

It is my pleasure to introduce the latest anthology from the Big Table Poets which includes 7 of my poems as well as poems by Jerri Beck, Robert Boliek, Suzanne Coker, Tom Gordon, Barry Marks, Shannon Smith and Seth Tanner.

For the next few weeks I will share the poems that appear in the book, starting with a revision of a poem I've shared here before. I'm telling you, a poem is never DONE.

Einstein’s Daughter

Had she been clock or apple,
compass or moving train, perhaps
Einstein wouldn’t have given her away.

Had she been mysterious, he might
have abandoned his obsession
with gravity and the speed of light,

claimed her as his most important
discovery. Had he taken her small hands,
just once, kissed each dimple and nail

perhaps he would have puzzled
over a different theory of relativity:
not E=mc2

but the riddled twist of DNA.
Perhaps he would have discovered
how shared time multiplies,

how love’s abstractions find
definition in story time and bath time
and leaving the light on, just in case.

- Irene Latham

"Half my life is an act of revision."

- John Irving

4 comments:

  1. Very impressive Irene!!

    Congratulations for the Anthology and for your published poems. I also belong to that school that keep revising their poems over and over.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I just read this three times.
    Love it!
    Are you doing anything in B'ham for this book?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great poem, Irene

    ReplyDelete

Your thoughts?