Because I just wrote a whole post on the tree in my backyard

and how it was trimmed by the gardeners yesterday

to look like a 4-year-old with a bad haircut

and how the tree looked embarrassed

and had lost the proud stance it has taken

as king of the backyard

and how it made me sad to see it that way…

And because I wrote all of this

and inserted pictures of said tree

and wound it all up with a very

cosmic connection between myself

and the tree and the power

to regenerate and to go on in spite

of life’s cruel twists…well,

because I hit the save button

and got a box that popped up

saying Sorry, we have to close

this program now.

An Error has occurred.

If you were in the middle

of something the information

may have been lost.

And it was.

Because of all this and the hour spent on it and the reluctance to recall it in all its glory,

I’m moving on…

…..

To talk about a new book I ordered from Amazon, an anthology, called The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry. I don’t know how I missed this gem. It’s been out since 2005. It’s different from a lot of anthologies in that there is a photo of each poet with a short paragraph about their publications, and then two to five pages of poems. I like putting a face with the name. There are almost ninety poets represented, including many of my favorites (Tony Hoagland, Sharon Olds, Naomi Shihab Nye, Li-Young Lee, Jane Hirshfield, Gerald Stern, Linda Pastan), as well as names completely new to me (Natasha Trethewey, Ruth L. Schwartz, Jack Myers, D. Nurkse).

It’s really a wonderful sampler and so far I like the poem selections the editor, Sue Ellen Thompson, has made. She says in the introduction to the volume that the primary criteria in selecting the poems was that they present one or more of the following: “a compelling narrative, the inventive use of language, and arresting image, or its ability to trigger a profound emotional response.”

Here’s a poem by Hayden Carruth that fits the bill:

I, I, I

First, the self. Then, the observing self.
The self that acts and the self that watches. This
The starting point, the place where the mind begins,
Whether the mind of an individual or
The mind of a species. When I was a boy
I struggled to understand. For if I know
The self that watches, another watching self
Must see the watcher, then another seeing that,
Another and another, and where does it end?
And my mother sent me to the barber shop,
My first time, to get my hair “cut for a part”
(Instead of the dutch boy she’d always given me),
As I was instructed to tell the barber. She
Dispatched me on my own because the shop,
Which had a pool table in the back, in that
Small town was the men’s club, and no woman
Would venture there. Was it my first excursion
On my own into the world? Perhaps. I sat
In the big chair. The wall behind me held
A huge mirror, and so did the one in front,
So that I saw my own small strange blond head
With its oriental eyes and turned up nose repeated
In ever diminishing images, one behind
Another behind another, and I tried
To peer farther and farther in the succession
To see the farthest one, diminutive in
The shadows. I could not. I sat rigid
And said no word. The fat barber snipped
My hair and blew his brusque breath on my nape
And finally whisked away his sheet, and I
Climbed down. I ran from that cave of mirrors
A mile and a half to home, to my own room
Up under the eaves, which was another cave.
It had no mirrors. I no longer needed mirrors.

Hayden Carruth
The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary Poetry
Edited by Sue Ellen Thompson
Autumn House Press, Publisher