FEATURE
December 2006

Kim Bridgford


THE CORTLAND REVIEW

E
SSAY
Tony Barnstone
  "A Manifesto on the Contemporary Sonnet: A Personal Aesthetics"
Tony Barnstone considers the sonnet from its formal beginnings to its evolution into the twenty-first century, including some generative techniques for sonnets of your own


S
ONNETS
Tony Barnstone

Willis Barnstone
Lorna Knowles Blake
Kim Bridgford
Billy Collins
Leisha Douglas
Barry Ergang
Ross A. Gay
Soheila Ghaussy This marks an author's first online publication
Miranda Girard This marks an author's first online publication
Myrna Goodman This marks an author's first online publication
Susan Gubernat
Heidi Hart
Jay Leeming This marks an author's first online publication
Anne Marie Macari

Patricia O'Hara
John Poch
Michael Salcman
Patricia Smith
A.E. Stallings

Gerald Stern
Joyce Sutphen
Jeet Thayil
Meredith Trede This marks an author's first online publication

 

Kim Bridgford directs the writing program at Fairfield University, where she is a professor of English and editor of Dogwood and Mezzo Cammin. Her third book of poetry, In the Extreme: Sonnets About World Records, winner of the Donald Justice Poetry Award, is forthcoming from the West Chester University Poetry Center in 2007.

The Carpenter    Click to hear in real audio


To be raised by one who built things was a gift.
To be raised by one who saw that out of air
A room was made, or pieces of a chair.
The world was known by measurement and heft.

As he grew up, he learned the way to touch,
As if the world held secrets in its clutch,
Which he would then reveal.  He grew to see
That in the commonplace there's mystery.

A tree would speak of unbuilt shapes within it
The way that Jesus knew the infinite.
He worked in words, and handled them like wood,
Creating lasting work that he called good.

He shaped the clouds into his father's face
For those who had before seen only space.

 

 

Kim Bridgford: Poetry
Copyright ©2006 The Cortland Review December 2006 FeatureThe Cortland Review