Please enjoy the poem, and feel free to leave a comment.

Beyond Gravitas

by Jarold Ramsey

They said it couldn’t be done
or more precisely he shouldn’t try it
—not, surely, at three score and fifteen!
—not, please, with your bionic hip!
But what was he to do, with his grandchild,
who had been taking Circus lessons,
showing off a repertory of stunts
but couldn’t manage a headstand?

Head to the floor, hands pressing downward for balance,
elbows akimbo, knees hoisted and briefly
cradled on the elbows, then legs slowly lifted,
straightened, wavering, but marking time
beyond gravitas over his pulsing head.

There now kiddo, that’s how it’s done,
said grandpa the old show-off,
seeing spots as he clambered down to earth,
already thinking about the next family lesson,
with Leo, Harper, Samantha, Maddy, and Willa,
all conspired on the floor with him,
all dangerously upside down for love,
twelve legs straight up waving like saplings,
reaching for the leaves and the birds!

from Jump Straight Up by Jarold Ramsey (The Poetry Box, 2023)
nominated for The Pushcart Prize by Shawn Aveningo Sanders, editor/publisher

The post “Beyond Gravitas” <br>by Jarold Ramsey appeared first on The Poetry Box.

The Poetry Box LIVE – November Edition!

Saturday, Nov 11, 2023 @ 4:00 PM (Pacific)

3pm (Alaskan) / 5pm (Mountain) / 6pm (Central) / 7pm (Eastern)

Featured Poets:

• Amelia Díaz Ettinger (OR) – author of Self Dissection
• Jarold Ramsey (OR) – author of Jump Straight Up
• Karen Gookin (WA) – author of The Hills Around Are Dust and Light

Enjoy a Video from the Show:

About the Featured Poets:

Karen Gookin grew up in the wheat farming country of North Central Montana. Daughter of a schoolteacher and a wheat farmer, and youngest of three children, she followed her siblings to the University of Montana, where she studied with Richard Hugo, Madeline DeFrees, and Jim Crumley. After graduation Karen taught high school English, then wrote for two newspapers. Later she and her husband Larry, whom she’d met in band at UM, moved to Oregon, then Washington, where they raised their daughters Jen and Amy. Karen received her MA in English and taught at Central Washington University for 30 years—20 of them playing flute and piccolo in the semi-professional Yakima Symphony Orchestra. Several of her poems have appeared in regional publications and online journals. Awards include the 2022 Tom Pier Prize for five themed poems in the Yakima Coffeehouse Poets chapbook. Always Montanans, Karen and Larry return to hike, camp, and stargaze in Glacier National Park every summer. She and her sister still farm their father’s land.

You can order Karen’s new book HERE

Born in Mexico and raised in Puerto Rico, Amelia Díaz Ettinger has written poems that reflect the struggle with identity often found in immigrants. She began writing poetry at age three, dictating poems out loud to the adults in her life who wrote them down for her. Amelia continued writing poems and short stores throughout her life, while working as a high school science and Spanish teacher. She is the author of Learning to Love a Western Sky, Speaking at a Time/Hablando a la Vez, and Fossils on a Red Flag.  Her poems, essays, and short stories have appeared in many journals, reviews, and anthologies. She recently earned an MFA in Creative Writing. Presently, she lives in Eastern Oregon with her partner, two dogs, two cats, and way too many chickens.

You can order Amelia’s new book HERE

Jarold Ramsey grew up on a ranch north of Madras, Oregon, and earned a BA in English from the University of Oregon, and a PhD in English Literature from the University of Washington. For nearly thirty years he taught Shakespeare, Modern Poetry, Creative Writing, and Native American Literature at the University of Rochester in New York State. He and his wife Dorothy, also a teacher, have three children and five grandchildren. After retirement, in 2000 Jerry and Dorothy moved back to the family ranch in Central Oregon, where they assumed the roles of “Groundskeepers Emeriti.”

Ramsey’s books of poems include Love in an Earthquake (1973), Hand-Shadows (1989), and Thinking Like a Canyon: New and Selected Poems (2012). His collection of Northwest Indian traditional stories, Coyote Was Going There (1977) is still in print. Since moving back to Central Oregon, he has written two books on the region’s local history, New Era (2003) and Words Marked by a Place (2016), and he serves as Advisory Editor of the local history journal, THE AGATE. His poetry has won numerous awards, including the Lillian Fairchild Award and the Quarterly Review International Poetry Prize; and in 2017 he was given the C.E.S. Wood Award for Lifetime Achievement as an Oregon Writer.

You can order Jarold’s new book HERE

The post The Poetry Box LIVE (Nov 11, 2023) appeared first on The Poetry Box.