I've been teaching persona poems to my students this last week. I wish I had had this one to share with them. It's a superb example of using language in fresh and interesting ways that are still accessible. I find myself wildly happy by this small poem discovery in the middle of my day.
Here is the trailer and hopefully you will access it easily...
And here is the poem:
Clangings
I hear the dinner plates gossip
Mom collected to a hundred.
My friends say get on board,
but I'm not bored. Dad's a nap
lying by the fire. That's why
when radios broadcast news,
news broadcast from radios
gives air to my kinship, Dickey,
who says he'd go dead if ever
I discovered him to them.
I took care, then, the last time
bedrooms banged, to tape over
the outlets, swipe the prints
off DVDs, weep up the tea
stains where once was coffee.
Not one seep from him since.
What, you wander, do I mean?
Except for slinging my songs
wayward home, how do things
in people go? is what I mean.
-Steven Cramer
From Clangings, Sarabande Press
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