Poem of the Week | September 22, 2014
Ann Keniston: "Double Lake"
This week we feature a new poem by Ann Keniston. Keniston is the author of the poetry collection, The Caution of Human Gestures, and a chapbook, November Wasps: Elegies, as well as coeditor of The New American Poetry of Engagement: A 21st Century Anthology. Her poems have appeared in Antioch Review, Interim, New Ohio Review, Southwest Review, and elsewhere. She is also a scholar of contemporary American poetry and associate professor of English at the University of Nevada, Reno. She lives in Reno with her husband and two sons.
Author’s note:
I first drafted this poem after a long period of not writing, which may be why it is so crowded with images and emotions, as well as details from actual dreams. In revision, I tried to clarify and connect its parts—the dream’s two scenes, the story about the catatonic girl I read about a long time ago in the Boston Globe, the references to birds, and the father’s actual situation—but I confess that the connection between them still feels somewhat unclear to me. I suppose the poem in fact is about this failure of connection. Maybe this is why it feels so sad to me: the poem (and I, as its creator) keep getting to the verge of expressing something definitive, then fall back from it. Or perhaps the poem is in fact a kind of elegy, for many things at once. The final sentence describes what I was watching as I wrote the poem. The leaves of the sycamore in my back yard really do all seem to fall off in a single day in November, and both scrub and Stellar jays coexist (but also bicker) there.
Double Lake
SEE THE ISSUE
SUGGESTED CONTENT

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

Poem of the Week
Jun 06 2022
“Death-Spot” by Nazifa Islam
This week’s Poem of the Week is “Death-Spot” by Nazifa Islam. Nazifa Islam is the author of the poetry collections Searching for a Pulse (Whitepoint Press, 2013) and Forlorn Light:… read more