Ted Kooser’s Column

Former U. S. poet laureate (2004-2006) Ted Kooser features a column called “American Life in Poetry” and makes it available to media in order to share the poems that he enjoys. His column 119 features Joseph Stanton’s poem, “Banana Trees.” Stanton is a poet who resides in Hawaii, so his experience of the banana tree is first hand.

Kooser always adds a comment by way of introducing the poem, and this one especially caught my attention as a “dedicated stay-at-home,” as Kooser also claims himself to be. He writes: “I'm especially attracted to poems that describe places I might not otherwise visit, in the manner of good travel writing. I'm a dedicated stay-at-home and much prefer to read something fascinating about a place than visit it myself. Here the Hawaii poet, Joseph Stanton, describes a tree that few of us have seen but all of us have eaten from.”

“Banana Trees” is a good poem to help celebrate the summer season; the following offers the first two stanzas:

• They are tall herbs, really, not trees,
• though they can shoot up thirty feet
• if all goes well for them. Cut in cross

• section they look like gigantic onions,
• multi-layered mysteries with ghostly hearts.
• Their leaves are made to be broken by the wind, . . .

To read the complete poem, please visit “Banana Trees.”

New Poll: Poetic Season

Each season has its special qualities, and poets have addressed those qualities in poems. Of the four seasons, which one do you think offers the best material for poetry? In other words, which do you think is the most poetic season?

1. Spring
2. Summer
3. Autumn
4. Winter
5. They are all equally poetic.

The poll is located below the blog on the Poetry homepage.

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