By Carolyne Wright
You took us out in your hand-built, gaff-rigged sloop.
You showed us how to trim the jib, hoist sails,
tack into wind, or run through the rip-tides’ hoop.
You showed us the ropes on your hand-built, gaff-rigged sloop.
We glided through Penn Cove’s morning in a sun-exalted loop
as the boat unfurled her stories with her sails.
We thrilled to go out in your hand-built, gaff-rigged sloop
and learn wind’s power in the story of her sails.
For Larry Cheek and “Nil Desperandum”
Copyright Wright 2012
Carolyne Wright 's most recent book is This Dream the World: New & Selected Poems (Lost Horse Press, 2017), whose title poem received a Pushcart Prize and was included in The Best American Poetry 2009. Her ground-breaking anthology, Raising Lilly Ledbetter: Women Poets Occupy the Workspace (Lost Horse, 2015), received ten Pushcart Prize nominations. Author of nine previous books and chapbooks of poetry, five award-winning volumes of poetry in translation from Spanish and Bengali, and a book of essays, she teaches for Richard Hugo House and for national and international literary conferences and festivals. A contributing editor for the Pushcart Prizes, Wright lived in Chile and traveled throughout Brazil on a Fulbright Grant during the presidency of Salvador Allende. She has received grants from the NEA, 4Culture, and Seattle’s Office of Arts & Culture, and returned to Brazil in 2018 as an Instituto Sacatar residency fellow in Bahia. https://carolynewright.wordpress.com
All work by Carolyne Wright
