Poem of the Week | March 14, 2016
Amie Whittemore: "Autumn Thinking"
This week we offer a new poem by Amie Whittemore. Whittemore is a poet, educator, and co-founder of the Charlottesville Reading Series in Charlottesville, Virginia. Her poems have appeared in The Gettysburg Review, Smartish Pace, North American Review, and elsewhere. She is a recipient of a Vermont Studio Center fellowship and a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Memorial Poetry Prize. Her first poetry collection, Glass Harvest, is forthcoming from Autumn House Press.
Author’s note:
Ever since I was a teenager, fall seemed the season of possibility: a new school year could mean, maybe, a new self? Could mean a slipping of one’s own dead leaves, of putting on a bright show? Autumn’s blend of departure and new starts, of fading and glowing at once, still gets me all worked up. Even though I am no longer a student and only sometimes a teacher, the crispness in the air still points to shaking off whatever shades one’s heart. “Autumn Thinking” distils this feeling as well as this feeling’s shadow: the self’s stubborn way of being perpetually static and fluid. I can’t shed all the dead skin at once, nor can I blossom when spring’s light reaches just the right angle. Which is to say this is a poem not only about autumn, but also about my abiding desire to be a tree someday.
Autumn Thinking
SEE THE ISSUE
SUGGESTED CONTENT

Poem of the Week
Jun 27 2022
“Minnie Mouse vs. Security” by M.K. Foster
This week’s Poem of the Week is “Minnie Mouse vs. Security” by M.K. Foster. M.K. Foster’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Indiana Review; The Gettysburg Review; Crab Orchard;… read more

Poem of the Week
Jun 20 2022
“Black Hole in the Long Island Sound” by Peter LaBerge
This week’s Poem of the Week is “Black Hole in the Long Island Sound” by Peter LaBerge. Peter LaBerge is the author of the chapbooks Makeshift Cathedral (YesYes Books) and… read more

Poem of the Week
Jun 13 2022
“Nude #2” by Mag Gabbert
This week’s Poem of the Week is “Nude #2” by Mag Gabbert. Mag Gabbert is the author of the forthcoming collection SEX DEPRESSION ANIMALS (Mad Creek Books, 2023), winner of… read more