12 notes
·
View notes
The Chorus // Craig Morgan Teicher
1.
It’s, you know, the part that repeats,
the bit you’re supposed
to remember, the bit that bears
repeating, the part that means
something new
each time, something different,
and the same thing, too,
the thing you can’t forget,
that gets stuck in your head.
So, like, childhood
is endless and over
almost as soon as it begins?
Yeah, like that. Ten years
shrinks like the pages
of a water-damaged book.
No, the pages don’t really shrink
or shrivel, they crinkle, get kinda
crisp and brittle, but
time’s like that, a wrinkle,
and suddenly you’ve been
married as long as
you were ever a kid,
ever awash in the interminable
Thursday of your first ten years, when
three months was an aeon, when,
like, childhood was endless
and over as soon as it began.
See what I did there? Shifted
the refrain into the middle.
Yeah, time is like that, and
2.
suddenly your newborn
is ten and your wife
is celebrating the birthday
only grownups do,
and you must be older
than your mom was
at your age, and it’s not
Thursday—was it ever? And the two
pills you have to take every night.
How is it Sunday, I mean
Monday, this morning, your alarm,
your coffee grumbling, thunder,
and the kids (two of them,
suddenly) are out the door, and
their childhood is
endless and already over
as soon as it begins, and
you’re on the bus to work. See what
I did there? I don’t. The four
pills you have to take three
times every day, you might
3.
as well be already
at your desk, your deathbed,
holding your daughter’s
grownup hand, you
hope, the hospital calm and
clean, like the one your mother
died in, and there’s hopefully
money somewhere to take care
of everything, and this
is like childhood, endless
and over as soon as it begins,
or as close as you’ll ever get
again—see what I did
there? Did you
see? Did anyone?
2 notes
·
View notes
Another Day, Craig Morgan Teicher [ transcript in ALT ]
40 notes
·
View notes
A poem by Craig Morgan Teicher
Peers
I’m thinking of you beautiful
and young, of me young
and confused and maybe
beautiful. There were lots of us—
these were our twenties, when,
post-9/11, we were about to
inherit the world, and we had no idea
what to do with it. And look
what we did, and we didn’t.
And now look at us, and it.
We turned away for a blip, started
whispering, kissing, had kids,
bought houses, changed bulbs,
submitted claims, changed channels,
FaceTimed, streamed, upgraded,
were two-day-shipped to, and midway
through our prime earning years
we look up again, decades groggy,
decades late. Forgive us, we thought—
but now it doesn’t matter. These are our
outcomes, consequences, faults,
forties, when the hourglass
is beeping and bleak and people
like us have memories like this
and wonder if the beauty that’s left
is really still beautiful, if it was.
Craig Morgan Teicher
This poem appeared in the April 5, 2021 issue of the New Yorker.
Listen to Craig Morgan Teicher read his poem.
0 notes
8 Apr
Peers
By Craig Morgan Teicher
I’m thinking of you beautiful
and young, of me young
and confused and maybe
beautiful. There were lots of us—
these were our twenties, when,
post-9/11, we were about to
inherit the world, and we had no idea
what to do with it. And look
what we did, and we didn’t.
And now look at us, and it.
We turned away for a blip, started
whispering, kissing, had kids,
bought houses, changed bulbs,
submitted claims, changed channels,
FaceTimed, streamed, upgraded,
were two-day-shipped to, and midway
through our prime earning years
we look up again, decades groggy,
decades late. Forgive us, we thought—
but now it doesn’t matter. These are our
outcomes, consequences, faults,
forties, when the hourglass
is beeping and bleak and people
like us have memories like this
and wonder if the beauty that’s left
is really still beautiful, if it was.
6 notes
·
View notes
I’m thinking of you beautiful
and young, of me young
and confused and maybe
beautiful. There were lots of us—
these were our twenties, when,
post-9/11, we were about to
inherit the world, and we had no idea
what to do with it. And look
what we did, and we didn’t.
And now look at us, and it.
We turned away for a blip, started
whispering, kissing, had kids,
bought houses, changed bulbs,
submitted claims, changed channels,
FaceTimed, streamed, upgraded,
were two-day-shipped to, and midway
through our prime earning years
we look up again, decades groggy,
decades late. Forgive us, we thought—
but now it doesn’t matter. These are our
outcomes, consequences, faults,
forties, when the hourglass
is beeping and bleak and people
like us have memories like this
and wonder if the beauty that’s left
is really still beautiful, if it was.
Craig Morgan Teicher, “Peers”
5 notes
·
View notes
Pengakuan
judul asli : Confession
penyair : Craig Morgan Teicher
buku : to Keep Love Blurry
terjemah bebas oleh : Ramadhan A
lowell melakukannya dengan baik karena ia mengerti, meskipun kepiawaiannya berkata
"aku pernah seburuk itu,"
ia tetaplah harus tampil sempurna.
tiada yang mencintai seseorang yang membenci dirinya sendiri,
seorang yang kuat, dan semua pesona atas minat seseorang pada kejahatannya sendiri
yang ia tumpahkan pada pertunjukan bagi yang terluka olehnya, atau
bagi mereka yang belum pernah dan menjadi sasaran selanjutnya.
Si pemberani,
bintang rock,
pawang sirkus yang piawai,
yang membakar dirinya dengan api tiap malam.
lalu dipadamkan dengan tangisan penontonnya. Unik!
itulah tipuan yang mereka sukai;
ia baik-baik saja.
karena ia mencintai dirinya, kebencian yang dipermainkan.
seorang pembenci diri sejati,
yang memkau rumah-rumah kosong,
terlambat.
0 notes
Peers
By Craig Morgan Teicher
I’m thinking of you beautiful
and young, of me young
and confused and maybe
beautiful. There were lots of us—
these were our twenties, when,
post-9/11, we were about to
inherit the world, and we had no idea
what to do with it. And look
what we did, and we didn’t.
And now look at us, and it.
We turned away for a blip, started
whispering, kissing, had kids,
bought houses, changed bulbs,
submitted claims, changed channels,
FaceTimed, streamed, upgraded,
were two-day-shipped to, and midway
through our prime earning years
we look up again, decades groggy,
decades late. Forgive us, we thought—
but now it doesn’t matter. These are our
outcomes, consequences, faults,
forties, when the hourglass
is beeping and bleak and people
like us have memories like this
and wonder if the beauty that’s left
is really still beautiful, if it was.
1 note
·
View note
Tremulous.
‘Am I lost / or have I been lifted?’ the poet asks. “Adam Giannelli talks to the world-to rain, to insomnia, to the beloveds here and vanished, to the stars themselves in their ‘old staring contest.’ Sink into this book as into solace and trouble. “This extraordinary and sobering debut begins with a literal stutter-‘Since I couldn't say tomorrow / I said Wednesday.’ In trade for this impediment, Adam Giannelli finds that, in poetry, what can’t be said gives way to what must be said.”-Craig Morgan Teicher, judge, Iowa Poetry Prize Though perfect expression may be unattainable, poetry is often about the process, and it is a pleasure to watch Giannelli work (and rework) his magic.”-starred review, Publishers Weekly He contends with the limits of clarity using some quite brilliant anagrams and homonyms, as in “parents in the train window winnowed to transparence.” Sometimes Giannelli seems to pull stunning phrases whole from the ether, describing the tides as “the ocean tearing blue page after/ blue page from its journal.” He also explores grief through a document written by a deceased grandfather, its perplexities perhaps easier to contend with than those of life itself. Metaphors are applied and swapped out, as in “Hydrangea,” where the flower is a snow cone, a “Bearded lady,// balloon man, chameleon,” “honeycomb/ and bouquet,” “viscous muscle,” and more. In “Star Gazers,” “we” look out at the stars, but they are looking right back at us. This striving for fluency could have been born from the childhood speech impediment the poet reflects on poignantly in the opening poem: “since I can’t say everlasting/ I say every/ lost thing.” At the same time, Giannelli is preoccupied with double meanings. “Giannelli’s debut is a quiet affair, but its simplicity masks layers and a longing for precision exhibited through minute adjustments, tweaked phrases, and shifting imagery.
0 notes
"A Poet Who Looks to Nature, and Honors Its Secrets" by BY CRAIG MORGAN TEICHER via NYT Books https://ift.tt/hJaC1QO
0 notes
Congratulations to Irene Cooper and FLP for being named a Finalist in the 2022 Oregon Book Awards!
STAFFORD/HALL AWARD FOR POETRY
Judges: Craig Morgan Teicher, Sun Yung Shin, Malcolm Tariq
Irene Cooper of Bend, spare change (Finishing Line Press)
0 notes
I get the New Yorker and this was a wonderful poem included in this weeks issue.
2 notes
·
View notes
Image by dedalusj/Flickr Creative Commons
Poetry critic Craig Morgan Teicher is back with his annual roundup of poetry books to look forward to in 2020. He’s says he’s not optimistic about the state of America:
Things are bad, hatred is rampant, and fear mostly seems to be winning.
And so I turn to poetry all the more, for what it still can do, what it has always done: Take action in language, speak the complicated, multifaceted truth, oppose silence and silencing.
Here are the books he hopes will help keep the darkness at bay.
-- Petra
67 notes
·
View notes
Another Day
It should be difficult,
always difficult, rising
from bed each morning,
against gravity, against
dreams, which weigh
like the forgotten names
of remembered faces.
But some days it’s
easy, nothing, to rise,
to feed, to work, to
commit the small graces
that add up to love,
to family, to memory,
finally to life, or
what one would choose
to remember of it, not
those other leaden
mornings when sleep
is so far preferable
to pulling over one’s
head the wet shirt
of one’s identity again,
the self one had been
honing or fleeing
all these years,
one’s fine, blessed
self, one’s only,
which another day fills.
Craig Morgan Teicher
from The Trembling Answers, 2017
88 notes
·
View notes
Lifted
Well, I guess no one can have everything.
I must learn to celebrate when I fail.
Inner growth and fortitude follow the sting,
right? Won't I rise with holy wind in my sails?
Yet they always seem to get what I want,
door after door flung open. Why are
the keepers of doors, who haunt
the hopeful halls of fate and desire
so partial to them, but not to me?
Yes, I do feel sorry for myself—don't, brother,
pretend the bitter blanket of self-pity
hasn't warmed your bones. It's not lovers
or fame I crave, nor even happiness, particularly.
Only to be lifted, just once, above all others.
—Craig Morgan Teicher
109 notes
·
View notes
“Lifted” - Craig Morgan Teicher
Well, I guess no one can have everything.
I must learn to celebrate when I fail.
Inner growth and fortitude follow the sting,
right? Won't I rise with holy wind in my sails?
Yet they always seem to get what I want,
door after door flung open. Why are
the keepers of doors, who haunt
the hopeful halls of fate and desire
so partial to them, but not to me?
Yes, I do feel sorry for myself—don't, brother,
pretend the bitter blanket of self-pity,
hasn't warmed your bones. It's not lovers
or fame I crave, nor even happiness, particularly.
Only to be lifted, just once, above all others.
2 notes
·
View notes