Poet Laureate Poem Prompts

A third generation Japanese-American whose Fresno roots went back to the beginning of the 20th century, Lawson and his family were sent to WW II relocation camps when he was four. Finding that he didn’t quite know where he fit in when he came out of the camps after the war, he gravitated toward the black and Chicano groups in his high school. He also gravitated toward their music, and by the time he went to Fresno State, he had taken up the jazz string bass. The music, repetition, rhythm, spontaneity and disciplined freedom of jazz infuse all aspects of his life – but especially his writing.

It was a natural step from the rhythm of the bass to the rhythm of poetry, at the behest of poet and professor Phil Levine. Lawson started writing and publishing, attended the Iowa Writers Workshop, and got an MFA from the University of Oregon. He is Professor Emeritus of Southern Oregon University and former Oregon Poet Laureate 2006.

Bio excerpt provided courtesy of George Mason and Salli Slaughter of The Author’s Road. Lawson’s book titles, prizes awarded, and video interview are available on their website. Photo credit: Salli Slaughter.

When the river rose that year, we were beside it
and ourselves with fear; not that it would do anything
to us, mind you—our hopes were much too high for that—
but there was always that remote, unacknowledged possibility
that we had thrown one stone too many, by the handful,
and that by some force of nature, as they called it,
it might rain and rain for days, as it had been,
with nothing to hold it and the structure back,
and with everything to blame, including children
on into late summer and all the years ahead,
when it would be ours to bear, to do much more with
than remember and let it go at that—some mud,
some driftwood, some space of sky as a reminder
before getting on with the world again;
no, the balance was ours to share, and responsibility
for rivers had as much to do with anything
as rain on the roof and sweet fish for supper,
as forests and trembling and berries at sunrise;
thus it was, then, that we kept our watch,
that we kept our wits about us and all the respect
we could muster, sitting in silence,
sleeping in shifts, and when the fire died,
everyone was there to keep it alive;
somehow, though, in the middle of the night,
despite our vigils, our dreams, our admonitions,
our structure, our people, and all our belongings
broke free with a shudder and went drifting away—
past the landing, the swing, the anchored cages,
down through the haunted rapids, never to be found;
when we awoke that morning, the sun was back,
the river had receded under our measuring stick,
and everything had been astonishingly replaced,
including people and pets, the structure intact,
but in the solitude of all our faces as we ate,
the knowledge was there, of what we all had done,
and that everything would never be the same.

sometimes we think we are gods
that we know everything
that in our wakeful moments
we are creating universes

even when the desert sun
visits the Northwest for days on end
we think if we keep our wits about us
the rains will return on schedule

meanwhile my husband shields the glass
of every window with shades or tarps
monitors the garden’s irrigation
fills the jugs with water

we huddle indoors
doing our inner work
until the cop shows up on the stoop
brandishing a colorful bouquet

she wears dark navy with heavy boots
belt of cop business weighting her hips
her hair in a tight red knot
she tarries in the garden

says a perp confessed to stealing flowers
on our corner–the Russian sage a likely match
to the purple in her hand
gods that we are we don’t press charges

I wonder for whom he gathers
flowers from others–
in my universe I’d plunder the blueberries

 

Rachel Barton:  Inada’s poem felt really Big. I felt that the child’s perspective of holding his universe together through his vigilance was also an adult perspective. We each have our ideas of what we can control or manifest. This brought me to my local experience of climate change and the various “insurances” we enact against it. But then the outer world intervened and took over the poem. Happy surprise!