May, 2016

FEATURED POET: TOD MARSHALL grew up in Kansas. His book Bugle (Canarium Press, 2014) won the Washington State Book Award in 2015. His other books of poetry include The Tangled Line (Canarium Press, 2009), and Dare Say (University of Georgia Press, 2002). He has also published a collection of his interviews with contemporary poets, Range of the Possible (Eastern Washington University Press, 2002) and an attendant anthology of work by the interviewed poets, Range of Voices (EWU Press, 2005). He lives in Spokane, Washington, and teaches at Gonzaga University.  He is serving as the poet laureate for the state of Washington from 2016-2018.

VIDEO: TOD MARSHALL-GHOST TOWN OPEN MIC

ARTICLE: TOD MARSHALL-INLANDER

HOW WE LEARN THAT WE ARE NOT ON OUR OWN

I don’t know what that sheriff thought of me

(shirtless, eight, holding the sheet metal screen

door, bracket and chain to keep it from swinging

busted in the last storm), as I lied to him

again when he asked if my folks were home,

except that his face showed he knew how things

would end up for me. “Come on, I know they’re home.”

The a/c labored in a window, evening

cicadas made racket.  Behind me, the TV

that was on when I answered the door, clicked off.

“Who turned it off?”  I looked him straight on. 

“My little brother,” I said, just as he

toddled in diapers from the back of the trailer,

and we stood side by side, guarding that door.

(First published in Crab Creek Review)

THAT ONGOING WORK

Most of us know only smoke:  dirty gauze, grey

weight on each cough of an hour.  Red eye

of the sun lingering, that slow arson

plotting with lightning, both hiding in clouds,

and worse:  most of us have occasionally cursed

the haze, rubbed watery eyes, mumbling my day,

my breath, my unburnt minutes.  We’re like that.  Try,

instead, to feel real heat, to hold hands open

and near hot embers, blue propane of a grill;

to see meat slowly sear, grease sizzle

into cinder. It’s okay if you fail. 

Just try.  And try, too, beneath blue skies when wind

clears smoke away, try to recall the blackened land,

and maybe try becomes a small act to heal the abundant ash, the pain.

(First appeared in Elizabeth Austen's blog)

WRITE YOUR POEM!

Shakespeare had stage blocking to get the attention of the audience with contrast. Sometimes it is the subject matter that shocks, like with farmworkers in Steinbeck's novels.  What does the poet have?  Not that much. It has to count.  

Note that Tod's first poem the screen door and diapers on his brother rivet the reader. Those tiny details are counterweights to whatever the sheriff is bringing to the front door.

What does your screen door do in your poem?  Notice there is no waxing eloquent in Tod's poem.  The moment is left with the eight-year old.  Economy of image and word.  

What can you cut out?  How can you focus your image?  Catch up to Tod around the state.  Write your poem.