Poetry: Ben Howard

The Poem, the Poet:

A native of eastern Iowa, Ben Howard is the author of six books, including Dark Pool (Salmon), Midcentury (Salmon), The Pressed Melodeon (Story Line Press), and Lenten Anniversaries (Cummington). For the past three decades, he has contributed poems, essays, and reviews to literary journals in the United States and beyond, including Poetry, Poetry Ireland Review, Shenandoah, and the Sewanee Review. His work has appeared in numerous anthologies, most recently 180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day (Random House) and The Poetry Anthology (Ivan R. Dee). He teaches English and music at Alfred University in New York.

Irondequoit, Oswego, Canisteo Piling as they will in mid-October on unmown grass and still-intact impatiens,

those leaves could be the emblems of the names
that land on hills or settle into valleys

and later take their places on the maps
or in the histories of towns and cities,

as though they were indigenous as oak
or solid as the boulders on a mountain.

Irondequoit. Oswego. Canisteo.
Even to say them is to feel their weight,

though it's composed of little more than air
and though its content, felt or accidental,

may be at best a homely imitation
of things that are themselves no more substantial

than speeches that endured beyond the moment
and once-green forms that crumble underfoot.

-- Ben Howard