American Life in Poetry #3: Marnie Walsh.

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

A poem need not go on at great length to accomplish the work of conveying something meaningful to its readers. In the following poem by the late Marnie Walsh, just a few words, written as if they'd been recorded in exactly the manner in which they'd been spoken, tell us not only about the missing woman in the red high heels, but a little something about the speaker as well.


Bessie Dreaming Bear
Rosebud, So. Dak., 1960


we all went to town one day
went to a store
bought you new shoes
red high heels

ain't seen you since.


Reprinted from "A Taste of the Knife," Ahsahta Press, 1976, by permission of Tom Trusky, literary executor of the Walsh estate. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.



Also at Virtual Grub Street by/about Ted Kooser:

• The Ted Kooser Page: Links to online Interviews, Recordings, Poetry, Prose, Reviews, Photos and more;
• American Gothic (a review of Delights and Shadows by Ted Kooser. Copper Canyon Press, 2004);
• Ted Kooser and the American Life in Poetry column;
• American Life in Poetry #1: David Allan Evans;
• American Life in Poetry #2: Jonathan Greene;
• American Life in Poetry #4: Ruth Stone;
• American Life in Poetry #5: David Baker;
• American Life in Poetry #6: Barton Sutter;
• American Life in Poetry #7: Leonard Nathan;
• American Life in Poetry #8: Karma Larsen;
• American Life in Poetry #9: James Doyle;
• American Life in Poetry #10: Marge Piercy;
• American Life in Poetry #11: David Wagoner;
• American Life in Poetry #12: Andrei Guruianu;
• American Life in Poetry #13: Kevin Griffith;
• American Life in Poetry #14: Georgiana Cohen;
• American Life in Poetry #15: Janet McCann;
• American Life in Poetry #16: Lisel Mueller;
• American Life in Poetry #17: Wendell Berry;
• American Life in Poetry #18: Dan Gerber;
• American Life in Poetry #19: Shirley Buettner;
• American Life in Poetry #20: Jane Hirshfield;
• American Life in Poetry #21: Karin Gottshall;
• American Life in Poetry #22: Jean L. Connor;
• American Life in Poetry #23: E. G. Burrows;
• American Life in Poetry #24: Martin Walls;
• American Life in Poetry #25: Rodney Torreson;
• American Life in Poetry #26: Claudia Emerson;
• American Life in Poetry #27: Angela Shaw.