Providence

This evening I shared a cab with a priest
who said it was a fine day to ride cross town

with a writer. But I can't
finish the play I said,

it's full of snow.
The jaywalkers

walked slowly, a cigarette warmed
someone's hand.

Some of the best sermons
don't have endings, he said

while the tires rotated unceasingly
beneath us.

All over town people were waiting
and doubleparked and

making love and waiting.
The temperature dropped

until the shiverers zipped their jackets
and all manner of things started up again.

Credit

Author

Catherine Barnett

Catherine Barnett was born in Washington, D.C. and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. She studied at Princeton University and at the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers.

Barnett is the author of Human Hours (Graywolf Press, 2018); The Game of Boxes (Graywolf Press, 2012), which was the recipient of the 2012 James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets; and Into Perfect Spheres Such Holes Are Pierced (Alice James Books, 2004).

Of Barnett’s work, April Bernard has noted, “With subtle and cumulative force, The Game of Boxes builds a complex poetic structure in which fundamental questions about motherhood, trust, eroticism, and spiritual meaning are posed and then set into motion in relation to one another. The mind is delighted, the spirit enthralled, by this wonderful book.”

Barnett’s awards and honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Whiting Writers’ Award. Barnett, who also works as an independent editor, is the distinguished lecturer at Hunter College, the visiting poet at Barnard College, and teaches in the creative writing program at New York University. She lives in New York City.

Bibliography

Human Hours (Graywolf Press, 2018)
The Game of Boxes (Graywolf Press, 2012)
Into Perfect Spheres Such Holes Are Pierced (Alice James Books, 2004)

Date Published: 2012-01-01

Source URL: https://poets.org/poem/providence-0