#keith waldrop

on a ladder to

the window of a

room to which

the key is lost

. . .

Poet

The wind dying, I find a city deserted, except for crowds of people moving and standing.    Those standing resemble stories, like stones, coal from the death of plants, bricks in the shape of teeth.    I begin now to write down all the places I have not been— starting with the most distant.    I build houses that I will not inhabit.

Things seem to collect around me, wherever I go, in the same way ideas occur as if from nowhere, and since I have always balked at throwing anything out I sometimes imagine my house simply a context for unexpected items. I write under much the same compulsion: whether local images or abstract concepts, whatever interests me I hold on to as best I can and a poem is my formal grip. Everyone knows how a painter can put the most disparate things into a single picture—Jesus Christ, for instance, along with a Dutch windmill—and they are seen then in a single light.

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ANTIQUARY

Tonight! Celebrate 25 years of Ugly Duckling Presse!

Honoring the work of BURNING DECK PRESS and KEITH & ROSMARIE WALDROP