MICHAEL GARRIGAN
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ALONG THE RAFTMAN'S PATH

Four Poems

5/25/2019

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"Close Call" - Jack Gilbert 

Oh Jack Gilbert, you wreck me. It's been months since I've picked up this collection and in one line you throw me into the fire of the moment and show me the power of poetry. This poem is so incredibly human and right and powerful and perfect. Notice how the opening line, "Dusk and the sea is thus and so," anchors the voice of the poem in the here and now which sets us up for the gut punch of the realization that "they have not lit the lamp at the other farm yet / and all at once I feel lonely." This absent light takes the speaker, takes us, away from the "now" and into the past/future ether of loneliness. And that period after "surprise," so acute, it shows a sigh, it shows us this loneliness. But then we are back to the here and now, back to being "all right again." Thanks for the reminder, Jack. 
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"Landscape with Yellow Birds" - Shuntaro Tanikawa

This is a poem from the Here - Poems for the Planet anthology. I love the repetition of "there" throughout the poem, reminding us to see and to notice. I've been reading The Art of Voice by Tony Hoagland (Awesome!!) and he talks about how "inessential language creates an atmosphere of disconnectedness, or relationality" and how "it is exhilarating to listen to a voice that is practicing disclosure without seeking advantage. That is intimate." I think this poem exemplifies what Hoagland is writing about. The repetition of "there" and "so" invites us into the moment with the poet as they guide us through the slow, organic realization that everything we see and notice becomes our world. It reminds me of that Mary Oliver line that attention is the beginning of devotion... 
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"Word Drunk" - Jim Harrison

Ah, Jim Harrison. Whenever I need something or someone to slap some sense into me, to remind me what is important, I just pick up and read some Jim Harrison poems. These two lines, especially, kill me - "but I would feed on an essence / until it yields to me my own dumb form -". Yes! That is the entire purpose behind poetry. A writer needs to let himself be succumbed by the world outside their head. There, the river is through the woods. Go find it, and on the way, listen to every twig that cracks under foot. Feed on those sounds and the flicker of water through the leaves. 
"Staying in the Woodman's Cabin" - Marina Boroditskaya

This is another poem from the Here - Poems for the Planet anthology. I particularly love the the last four lines, reminding us that if we let ourselves be in and of a place, we can become something else, something larger than ourselves. Oftentimes we see landscapes as impressions of ourselves, when in reality, maybe, we are impressions and gestures of the moon and the sun, and the hedgehog grunting in the corner. We just need to stay in a place long enough. 
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Recent Publications

4/14/2019

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I've had the honor of having poems published by two really great journals over the past month- Hawk & Handsaw Journal of Creative Sustainability and Sky Island Journal​.  

Four poems, all centered on the relationship between humans, nature, industry, and water were published alongside some really great photographs at Hawk & Handsaw Journal of Creative Sustainability. I love how the photographs work alongside the poems. They do a fantastic job at capturing the rough beauty of Pennsylvania's mining country.   

"Life-Cage" was published in Sky Island Journal. I've been reading a lot of Robinson Jeffers over the past few months. I think he has influence my work more than any other poet. I wrote "Life-Cage" after finding the phrase in his poem, "Theory of Truth." His stanza- "Because only / tormented persons want truth. / Man is an animal like other animals, wants food and success and women, / not truth. Only if the mind / Tortured by some interior tension has despaired of happiness: then it hates /its life-cage and seeks further...". 

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Dead Bodies of the Susquehanna

9/22/2018

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I have a new poem, "Dead Bodies of the Susquehanna," in the latest issue of The Wayfarer. You can order your copy here - The Wayfarer, Autumn/Winter 2018

Thanks for reading!
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Rolled Hay, Bloated River, Birds

3/1/2018

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The lines of thinking I latched onto this week: 

Rolled hay. I ended up research the planting, growing, and harvesting process of hay. All because every day on my way to and from work, I drive past a few fields with large rolls of hay held together by twine. They have been left there to age, much like split wood, over the winter. Now, with the recent rains, they are soaked and beginning to sag. 

Bloated river. The river has been up over its bank all week. The highest all winter. Dark, quick, splotched with migrating buffleheads and Canadian geese. It dropped for a day, or two. But now is rising once again. A quick crest, dip and now another climb up the floodplain. 

Birds. The woods have been quiet and they sky sparse. Within the last few days with a few days pushing into the 60's, the sky is beginning to fill with birds, the woods have a brighter voice. 
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You laughed When I didn't know what 'jaded' meant - San Pedro River Review

2/16/2018

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My poem, "You Laughed when I didn't know what 'Jaded' Meant", is published in the new issue of the San Pedro River Review - "Music", Spring 2018 Volume 10 Number 1. You can purchase a copy here.  
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Sunday School

12/14/2014

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Still proud of this piece that was published in The Drake back in the Winter of 2011. I've sent another piece; I hope to hear back soon. 


Here's a direct link... http://tinyurl.com/mg32u7m
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    About

    I stumbled upon the name "Raftman's Path" walking the river trail that traverses through the little town I live in. It was named during the days when lumber was a huge commodity in this area. The Susquehanna River was an industrial thoroughfare - bearing down loads of lumber from the northern reaches of Pennsylvania towards the Chesapeake. Marietta was a stopping point, a place for the lumber either to go to the mills lining its banks or shoot further downstream through pig iron smoke. Raftmen would guide the lumber down to the mouth of the Susquehanna into the Chesapeake - an estuary of salt, water, lumber, ore, eel and shad. When their job was done, they would walk the raftman's path back through the Susquehanna Riverlands of Lancaster County towards their homes. The path is now wooded and meanders through some of the only "wild" places left in the county. 

    Sketches & scatterings. Rooted in Pennsylvania along the Susquehanna River. All words  & photos by Michael Garrigan unless otherwise noted. 

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www.mgarrigan.com by Michael Garrigan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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