each poem is intruder
alien irritant
is the party-crasher
the hanger-on
who can’t take a hint
the one who overstays the welcome
it never had
is worry at the corner of an eye
fret too insistent to skirt
the mistake rolled around and around
trying to smooth its rip-rap edges
the hurt the lie the blunder
regret taking on a faint sheen
discord building an opalescence
skin onto skin onto furling skin
the poem is nothing
but pearl
Paulann Petersen, Oregon Poet Laureate Emerita, has eight full-length books of poetry, most recently My Kindred from Salmon Poetry of Ireland. A former Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, she’s the recipient of the Holbrook Award from Literary Arts. Willamette Writers honored her with a Distinguished Northwest Writer Award.
Some poems do “force” themselves upon us and we will not be at peace until we put pen to paper.
Paulann Petersen is an American master of the short poem. Thrilled that “Accretion” takes as its subject how poetry gets under our skin. Instant classic.
Interesting take on starlight and what a poem is and can be.
Wonderful poems!
Paulann Petersen’s poems are spellbinding! What a joy to read her multi-faceted, penetrating poems which open up worlds to experience and ponder.
I love how these three poems play off each other, opal and pearl, as if the light is pouring through the words warming us all.
Among the many beautiful images in these poems, the following lines speak to my heart:
“your star
named Grief—
over you it hovers
that constant
ache of its light”