Poem of the Week | February 12, 2013
George David Clark: "Reveille with Lullabies"
This week we’re publishing a new poem by George David Clark. Clark has held the Olive B. O’Connor Fellowship in Poetry at Colgate University and is currently a Lilly Postdoctorate Fellow at Valparaiso University. This winter his poems can be found in new issues of The Believer, Cream City Review, FIELD, New South, Pleiades, Southern Poetry Review, and elsewhere. He is the editor of 32 Poems and lives in Indiana with his wife and son.
Author’s Note:
I remember the first time I saw my wife host a party. Her graciousness and pleasure at serving our guests made me want to learn how to mix interesting cocktails and to tell better jokes.
Something similar happened when we entered parenthood. It wasn’t that she changed, but certain latent aspects of my wife’s personality seemed suddenly drawn to the surface: a gentleness in her voice, an abiding patience. Watching her soothe our son those first few sleepless months, I was introduced to a new species of peace even as I came to know the labor that earned it. This poem began as an attempt to formalize both the shrill aggressiveness of an infant’s need and the tenderness with which a mother struggles to meet it.
Reveille with Lullabies
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