The sky was a concussion of clouds and notorious for dropping everything at a moment's notice. And the fog, how it removed everything and then it didn't. People gathered in the distance and made history until it hurt. They devoured field after field with bad ideas and took pride in the groomed ruins. It was never a photo opportunity. The mood when the forest met the asphalt: Too little, too late.
This poem was written shortly after we moved to Buffalo, a city with a rich tradition of innovative architecture and design—of Louise Blanchard Bethune, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Frederick Law Olmsted. The poem grew roots after learning how so many city neighborhoods and irreplaceable buildings were demolished for the construction and convenience of new expressways. I want the reader to enter the poem imagining a world without cities and how our cities can so easily be dismantled with such thoughtless acts of destruction.
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On January 1, poet Kwame Dawes assumed editorship of "American Life in Poetry," the long-running weekly newspaper column founded by Ted Kooser. "I believe in the column's goals and what it has achieved....I live with poetry as a constant, and so this is merely an extension of my conversation with poetry and with readers of poetry."
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"I have read a wide shelf’s worth of books of translation theory, but when I actually sit down to translate, especially poetry, all of that beautifully formulated theory goes out the window, and I am faced with the poet’s mind, and my mind, and how I am going to get them to work together."
