Wednesday, September 10

A small local kindness

I've been reading Stephen Dunn's Different Hours, which, before you click, is a book of poetry. (I was an English major for a reason, people, and it's not because that's what all the hotties majored in.) I'd never heard of Dunn before I saw this volume in the "bargain" bins at Barnes and Noble, but I picked it up anyway because it was $3.99 for a hardback edition of a Pulitzer-Prize winning book. I know poetry has always been a hard sell, but $3.99? Pulitzer Prize?

I held out some dim hope that the poems sucked, but as I've been reading (and re-reading) them, I've been pleased, in that quiet way that poetry pleases you, the way it makes you pause and read the words over again to make sure it really is as good as you thought that first trip through. And because we are lucky enough to live in the age of Amazon, you can read one of my favorite poems, Before the Sky Darkens, and then buy a copy for yourself.

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