Martha’s enthusiastic about the book Poetry 180: A Turning Back To Poetry, edited by former Poet Laureate Billy Collins. One gem in there by Robley Wilson, called “I Wish in the City of Your Heart”, provides a lovely image of that moment when the rain stops and the rutching kids can run outside. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Robley Wilson Poem”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
Earlier we were talking about poetry and just how much meaning and imagery and sensuality you can compress into very, very few words.
And for a great example of this, I highly recommend a poetry collection I’ve been reading. It’s called Poetry 180, A Turning Back to Poetry.
And the editor of this anthology, this literary bouquet, if you will, is Billy Collins, the former poet laureate of the United States.
And I wanted to share a poem from there. It’s by Robley Wilson.
I wish in the city of your heart you would let me be the street where you walk when you are most yourself.
I imagine the houses. It has been raining, but the rain is done, and the children kept home have begun opening their doors.
You know that moment when the kids have all been inside and they’ve been having to do indoor things, and then the moment opens up.
Yeah, I remember being both sides of that equation, that situation. That’s really great stuff.
We’ll put a link to this book online. It sounds like some wonderful stuff in there.
Somebody took a lot of care picking those poems up.
Yes, Billy Collins did.
If you’ve got a poem that you really love, maybe something that you shared at a wedding or some other family celebration, send it to us an email, words@waywordradio.org.
