[APPLAUSE]
The next reading will be by Howard Altmann.
Proud poet and playwright--
Howard Altmann traveled all the way from New York City,
to escape the turning leaves, to be with us this afternoon.
His recent book, a book of poems, is called In This House.
He will read his own poetry, tomorrow evening at 8:00 PM,
in our wonderful Poetry Center.
Mr. Howard Altmann
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you, David.
I can't make Arizona or Tucson jokes.
[LAUGHTER]
I'm going to read three poems, and I chose these poems--
I like poetry that's full bodied, that either
begins in the mind and leaves through the heart, or begins
in the heart and leaves through the mind,
but it has to do both.
And I think the three that I'm going
to read do that really well.
The first poem is called "Elegy" by Natasha Trethewey.
I think by now the river must be thick with salmon.
Late August, I imagine it as it was that morning--
drizzle needling the surface, mist at the banks
like a net settling around us--
everything damp and shining.
That morning, awkward and heavy in our hip waders,
we stalked into the current and found our places--
you upstream a few yards and out far deeper.
You must remember how the river seeped in over your boots
and you grew heavy with that defeat.
All day I kept turning to watch you, how first you mimed
our guides casting then cast your invisible line,
slicing the sky between us.
And later, rod in hand, how you tried--
again and again-- to find that perfect arc,
flight of an insect skimming the river surface.
Perhaps you recall I cast my line
and reeled in two small trout we could not keep.
Because I had to release them, I confess,
I thought about the past--
working the hooks loose, the fish
writhing in my hands, each one slipping away
before I could let go.
I can tell you now that I tried to take it all in,
record it for an elegy I'd write--
one day-- when the time came.
Your daughter, I was that ruthless.
What does it matter if I tell you I learned to be?
You kept casting your line, and when
it did not come back empty, it was tangled with mine.
Some nights, dreaming, I step again
into the small boat that carried us out and watch the bank
receding--
my back to where I know we are headed.
[APPLAUSE]
I think I might have changed the tenor of the afternoon.
[LAUGHTER]