October 2015
Poetry is a lonely business, but I have a friend who plays guitar, and when I play bass with him, I find community. My most recent book is In This Place: Selected Poems 1982-2013 and I've had recent poems in Hummingbird, Atticus Review, Hamilton Stone Review, and other literary magazines. I'm honored to serve as managing editor of the Lorine Niedecker Monograph Series, What Region?. I blog as The Middlewesterner (www.middlewesterner.com), and have put up at least five little poems a week since mid-2008.
Coming to Autumn
The peaceable sun
some days; and some days
a spatter of rain.
Rivers and trees, grasses,
the fields, birds flocking, oh
the birds, our lovely stones.
What comes together
falls to fall. We are
a heart-torn people.
May that which scatters
the stars hold us; may it
enfold us and keep us
now and in the hour
of our death. Amen.
Poet's Trick
You see what I did there,
he said. You wanted a poem.
I gave you a prayer.
©2015 Tom Montag