David Selzer is a writer of poetry, prose fiction, screenplays and stage plays. He embraces digital platforms to share his work of more than fifty years… READ MORE


  • FAMOUS FOR POEMS

    For one week’s show-and-tell when my granddaughter

    was seven she took in, unprompted,

    the book I had dedicated to her.

    She told her mother, “I told the teacher,

    ‘My grandpa was famous for poems.

    He writes about everything in the world.’

    But I don’t know why I said ‘was’.” Perhaps

    she was rehearsing my obituary.

     

    The teacher, keeping faith as the good will do,

    sight-read the title poem, A JAR

    OF STICKLEBACKS, to her multi-lingual,

    multi-cultural class – a piece about shattered

    glass, and spilt fish, and my grandpa rushing

    to the rescue, which ends, ‘imagine me

    holding up to the light, unbroken,

    a jar with all your wishes, all your hopes’.

     

    Note: see https://davidselzer.com/2013/01/a-jar-of-sticklebacks/ – the poem was first published by Armadillo Central – http://www.armadillocentral.com/armadillo-central/a-jar-of-sticklebacks-david-selzer.

     

     

     


    One response to “FAMOUS FOR POEMS”


    1. Clive Watkins Avatar
      Clive Watkins

      ‘Was famous for poems’… Yes, I know that one! – ‘He writes about everything in the world’ can be read in more than one way, which, given the speaker, the person referred to and the person reporting this remark, is intriguing. And is there a world beyond the world, one that cannot be, or is not to be, written about? I shall think on these things. The wisdom of youth reflected in age…

    Leave a Reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Search by Tag