April 15: Tulips
Martha
Tulips
Kevin Young
What the dead want—
shelter—opposable
thumbs—to quit being
compared to taxes,
as if they can be
evaded. Each April
sadly
sadly wiser,
& alone
they push up
like tulips from the earth,
perennial as pain.
Trouble me again.
----
Kevin Young is incredible at making his poems so, so spare, yet stuffed full of meaning. Every word brimming over. Some others:
+ Gutbucket
+ Boogaloo
+ Expecting
Pluck a poem from the overgrown garden of today in:
2025: Tree, Jane Hirshfield
2024: Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination of Anglikan Seraphym Subjugation of a Wild Indian Rezervation, Natalie Diaz
2023: Dutch Elm Disease, Valencia Robin
2022: More Bang for Your Buck Running Scared, Brennan Bestwick
2021: Rain, Peter Everwine
2020: Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale, Dan Albergotti
2019: Prayer, Galway Kinnell
2018: Egg, C.G. Hanzlicek
2017: Well Water, Randall Jarrell
2016: For Desire, Kim Addonizio
2015: The Coming of Light, Mark Strand
2014: Flying Low, Stephen Dunn
2013: The Envoy, Jane Hirshfield
2012: Red Wand, Sandra Simonds
2011: Trying to Raise the Dead, Dorianne Laux
2010: Asking for Directions, Linda Gregg
2009: A Blessing, James Wright
2008: New York, New York, David Berman
2007: Waste Land Limericks, Wendy Cope
2006: There Are Two Worlds, Larry Levis
2005: America, Allen Ginsberg