SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: CARL ADAMSHICK

By Carl Adamshick:

HOME

You had been gone a few days.
The place went looking for you,

unaware you were returning.

I remained lonely in the evening
when the moon broadcasted

silence through the dust.

My love was once
a faint blue tear
of thin glass glowing
in my chest.

Now my love is you.

It must be three in the afternoon
and I am trying to sleep
on your side of the bed.

THE CONSECRATION OF AN APRICOT

It has become what was irrepressible
in its nature. It is the color of fire
suspended in a passion of green.
It is ordained the egg of the sun
and when the hull of the moon
rides through a whisper of stars
it is a fever, desirable for its sweet
ache on the tongue. It is the swell
and flesh of a flower, the lost
antecedent of an almond-stone
heart. One after another after another
fills its office and falls into death’s
inception, where it is observed
on the slope of a knoll, lucid,
laid open, and rotting in utter beauty.

“Home” first appeared in The Oregonian. “The Consecration of an Apricot” first appeared in the Mid-American Review. These poems are published here today with permission from the poet.

Carl Adamshick won the 2010 Walt Whitman Award. His book Curses and Wishes is to be published in March of 2011.

Editor’s Note: I came across Carl Adamshick’s work in the recent issue of Narrative Magazine and I just about died and went to poetry heaven. Letter, which appears in that issue, is a must-read for any lover of that genre of poetry that intersects with the sexual and the heart, of which I most definitely am one. With the help of Lezlie Mayers, editor of the Friday Poetry Series here on As It Ought To Be, I was able to track down this poet-on-the-forefront and obtain his permission to print the two poems featured today.

According to the poet Dorianne Laux, Adamshick “has not joined the ranks of the M.F.A./Ph.D.’s and has never attended a writer’s conference or residency.” His work speaks for itself, I believe, in showing where nature outshines nurture, and how one can maintain genius simplicity in poetry by remaining outside of the world of literary higher ed. With moments like “It is the swell and flesh of a flower, “My love was once a faint blue tear of thin glass glowing in my chest. Now my love is you,” and “desirable for its sweet ache on the tongue,” Adamshick’s choice of language is a delight to the senses and the heart, a combination that is pure delight to those who love great poetry.

Want to read more by and about Carl Adamshick?
Poets.org
Carl Adamshick Receives the 2010 Walt Whitman Award
The Olives of Oblivion