Laura Cronk reads from Ghost Hour @KGB Monday Night Poetry
I was very moved listening to Laura Cronk read from her most recent book, Ghost Hour. Her childhood and my childhood have similarities. Although she grew up in Indiana and I grew up in Pennsylvania, I could relate. Her poems were like seeing an old friend, and though a lot of water had passed under the bridge, it was as if it had been only a day since we last met, a sustaining present, a presence I grew up with. These poems are of experience understanding everything as you read them.
A poem Laura doesn’t read on the Vimeo below, I am going to add now, a poem I think expresses what I’ve been talking about. For me reading it was love at first sight.
Yellow Wild Flower
I can eat as much as a big man. Wiry stems scarf up
sunlight, roots muscle through dirt getting at water.
aIf I could walk, I would run. Instead I shoot up
starburst buds and pinwheels of thick yellow.
Behind each bloom that’s going white at the edges,
about to look nibbled or crumpled or done,
there’s another spiky ball, ready. If I could walk,
I would never sit down. I stand straight, pixie cut
ruffled in the wind. There’s no swaying, there’s no
lolling a lush peony head toward all I want, hinting
hard. If I’m hungry, I say it. I eat and grow. I dare you
to scan this meadow and tell me you’re not thinking
yellow, yellow, yellow.
On Monday night, January 25, 2021, via Zoom, Laura read for the KGB Monday Night Poetry series that is curated by John Deming, Jada Gordon, Jason Schneiderman, and Matthew Yeager. The Vimeo below was taken and edited from that recording. Thank you all. Enjoy.
Ghost Hour is published by Persea Books. You can check it out here:
KGB Monday Night Poetry is among the longest running poetry reading series in NYC beginning back in 1997. You can watch and listen to their current readings on YouTube here:
Laura Cronk