Tuesday, April 13, 2010

The Morning Reading: "Nobody else saw her, but I saw her."

Just back from AWP in Denver where I heard Jean Valentine read this poem:

On a Passenger Ferry
by Jean Valentine

(For Grace Paley)

The deck is big, and crowded. In one corner,
an old woman, sick, on chemo, not in pain, is
writing in an elementary-school notebook.
Nobody else saw her, but I saw her.
I had seen her before. Her round, kind face,
smiling and still as a photograph
outside a window—



*

1 comment:

Robbi N. said...

Everyone who is a writer of a certain age must have met Grace Paley at one time or another. When we were in P-town, she came to my house for tea. She was so funny and warm, and tough at the same time.

 
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