American Life in Poetry: Column 822
BY TED KOOSER, AMERICAN POET GRADUATE
The three of American Life in Poetry, Ted, Pat and Cameron, wish you a happy and healthy 2021, and here’s a poem to celebrate our friendship with you and our 15th year of weekly poems. Warren Woessner is a poet and patent attorney living in Minneapolis. If you’ve invented a new type of poem and want to patent it, it’s pretty busy and probably can’t help you. His most recent book is Exit – Sky from Holy Cow! Press.
New Year’s Eve
5 pm, corner stand,
Oak Bar, Plaza Hotel,
New York, Center
of the world of all
that matters.
On a Belvedere martini,
up with a turn, he contemplates you
like a languid goldfish
in a clear pool with garden,
or a suspended tear
that can be re-entered,
like that first full breath,
in case you need it,
as the world prepares
to start over.
We do not accept unsolicited shipments. American Life in Poetry is made possible by the Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It also has the support of the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Copyright of the poem © 2020 by Warren Woessner, “New Year’s Eve”, by Exit – Sky, (Holy Cow! Press, 2020). Reprinted poem courtesy of Warren Woessner and publisher. Copyright Copyright 2021 © The Poetry Foundation. The author of the presentation, Ted Kooser, served as a U.S. poetry consultant at the Library of Congress from 2004 to 2006.