American Life in Poetry: ‘Crater Heart’
Sun., Nov. 20, 2022
By Kwame Dawes
Tennessee Hill’s South emerges in her poem as a character, a personage that haunts and possesses her with beauty and a certain disquiet. Her poem, “Crater Heartk,” moves from fragmentary image to simile to metaphor in a seemingly disjointed fashion, that in the end, becomes a composition of arresting beauty: “I have stuffed the South’s nightlights/in my mouth.” Perhaps this is how she wants us to read her poem of elegant strangeness.
Crater Heart
Such strangeness these days.
Morning rising over my head
like the quilt sewn of old t-shirts
or saltwater waves
licking our sun-bleached dock.
Then–you absorbing moment, you
harvest queen–the sky is surprised
by evening’s orchard.
I have stuffed the South’s nightlights
in my mouth. Gala of fireflies.
How clumsy I feel in front of God.
Poem copyright 2022 by Tennessee Hill, “Crater Heart” from the Adroit Journal Issue, Forty-One. American Life in Poetry is made possible by the Poetry Foundation and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. We do not accept unsolicited submissions.
Local journalism is essential.
Give directly to The Spokesman-Review's Northwest Passages community forums series -- which helps to offset the costs of several reporter and editor positions at the newspaper -- by using the easy options below. Gifts processed in this system are not tax deductible, but are predominately used to help meet the local financial requirements needed to receive national matching-grant funds.
Subscribe to the Spokane7 email newsletter
Get the day’s top entertainment headlines delivered to your inbox every morning.
