{"id":2932,"date":"2016-02-17T23:46:21","date_gmt":"2016-02-17T23:46:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/?p=2932"},"modified":"2017-03-25T04:32:15","modified_gmt":"2017-03-25T04:32:15","slug":"this-not-the-poem-i-most-want-to-write","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/this-not-the-poem-i-most-want-to-write\/","title":{"rendered":"This not the Poem I Most Want to Write by John L. Stanizzi"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"head<\/h1>\n

This not the Poem I Most Want to Write<\/h2>\n

by John L. Stanizzi<\/p>\n

Every year the poem I most want to write, the poem that would in effect allow me to stop writing, changes shapes, changes directions. It refuses to come forward, to stand still while I move to meet it, embrace and coax it to sit on the porch with me and watch the lightning bugs steal behind the fog\u2019s heavy veil, listen for the drag of johnboats through the orchestra of locusts and frogs\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

C. D. Wright (January 6, 1949 \u2013 January 12, 2016)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

after<\/em> Elizabeth Bishop
\nHere at dawn in mid-January
\nthere are no lightning bugs,<\/p>\n

nor is there an orchestra
\nof locusts and frogs,<\/p>\n

though an ensemble of light rain
\nhas been tuning all morning<\/p>\n

on the porch, and the last tatters
\nof a timid snowfall make their ascension,<\/p>\n

lazy ghosts, slow spirits of snow
\nclearing the way for the brown grass<\/p>\n

to take a breath and remind us
\nthat the wood smoke tangled<\/p>\n

around the bony, leafless branches
\ntells the trees about the deep<\/p>\n

beauty of their own souls,
\ntheir own green exuberance,<\/p>\n

and though this may not be
\nthe poem I most want to write,<\/p>\n

for now it is my only possession,
\nand like Elizabeth\u2019s Man-Moth<\/em>,<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll give it to you.
\nHere. Take it,<\/p>\n

cool as melted snow,
\nclean and tasting of earth.<\/p>\n

###<\/p>\n

John L. Stanizzi is the author of the chapbook, Windows<\/em>. \u00a0His full length collections are Ecstasy Among Ghosts, Sleepwalking, Dance Against the Wall<\/em> (www.antrimhousebooks.com<\/a>), and After the Bell,<\/em> and Hallalujah Time<\/em>! (www.bigtablepublishing.com<\/a>). \u00a0His poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, The New York Quarterly, Tar River Poetry, Rattle, Passages North, The Spoon River Quarterly, Poet Lore, The Connecticut River Review, Freshwater, Boston Literary Review<\/em>, and many other publications. \u00a0He has new work forthcoming in Raintown Review, Off the Coast, Black Cat Moon, and LIPS. \u00a0John has read at many venues throughout Connecticut, including The Sunken Garden Poetry Festival, RJ Julia Booksellers, and the Arts Caf\u00e9 Mystic, and his work has been featured on Garrison Keillor\u2019s The Writer\u2019s Almanac<\/em>. \u00a0He is currently an adjunct professor of English at Manchester Community College. \u00a0John is currently at work on two volumes — \u00a0Hallelujah Time!<\/em> \u2013 Volume II, the follow up to his recently released Hallelujah Time! \u00a0and another book of poems called Sundowning. \u00a0He lives with his wife, Carol, in Coventry, Connecticut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John L. Stanizzi is the author of the chapbook, Windows. His full length collections are Ecstasy Among Ghosts, Sleepwalking, Dance Against the Wall <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2933,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poem"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}