Bread of the Moment: Poems

By David Sanders

A collection of poems about time, solitude, and wisdom that leads readers to hover between acceptance of and alienation from our fragility.

Bread of the Moment, the follow-up to David Sanders' Compass and Clock (Swallow Press, 2016), devotes keen attention to the porous nature of the past and how the unbidden evidence of ordinary life pervades the world, provoking a spectrum of moments from which to draw meaning and find solace. These poems, characterized by a mix of free and formal verse, depict quiet days at home or in nature, as well as close calls and brushes with death: chronic illness, a house fire, a car crushed by a boulder.

In this way, these poems amplify the fragility of the commonplace, a mystery from which we are, amid the noise of our everyday lives, sometimes estranged. Through this exploration, Sanders constructs a precarious balance between alienation and acceptance, striking a note at once recognizable and new.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Swallow Press
• Release date: Oct 19, 2021
• ISBN: 9780804041188

David Sanders

David Sanders is the author of two poetry collections from Swallow Press, Compass and Clock and Bread of the Moment. For twenty years he was the general editor of the Hollis Summers Poetry Prize, and he was the founding editor of Poetry News in Review. His poems and translations have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. He is a native of Portage County, Ohio.

Book preview

BREAD OF THE MOMENT

Bread of the Moment

poems

DAVID SANDERS

SWALLOW PRESS / OHIO UNIVERSITY PRESS

ATHENS, OHIO

Swallow Press

An imprint of Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701

ohioswallow.com

© 2021 by David Sanders

All rights reserved

To obtain permission to quote, reprint, or otherwise reproduce or distribute material from Swallow Press / Ohio University Press publications, please contact our rights and permissions department at [phone] or [phone] (fax).

Printed in the United States of America Swallow Press / Ohio University Press books are printed on acid-free paper ™

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Sanders, David, 1955 March 4– author.

Title: Bread of the moment : poems / David Sanders.

Description: Athens, Ohio : Swallow Press / Ohio University Press, [2021]

Identifiers: LCCN 2021011154 (print) | LCCN 2021011155 (ebook) | ISBN 9780804012331 (paperback ; acid-free paper) | ISBN 9780804041188 (pdf)

Subjects: LCGFT: Poetry.

Classification: LCC PS3619.A5263 B74 2021 (print) | LCC PS3619.A5263 (ebook) | DDC 811/.6—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021011154

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021011155

Passing through the world along the rooftop of hell, we look for flowers.

—Kobayashi Issa

CONTENTS

One

Politics (A Walk through the Woods)

The Blue Danube

Waiting to Happen

Wedding Day (Bird Trapped in a Flue)

Matinée

Chatelaine

The Break-In

The Slide

Exercise (Cul-de-sac)

Abandoned Nests Exposed by Winter

Meal of Dreams

The House on Fire across the Street

Self-Portrait as a Fly on the Wall of Modern History

Morning Frost along the River

The Luxury of Light Horses

Another Poem Beginning with the Weather: An Elegy

Art Lessons from the Past

Particulates

Self-Portrait with Antlers

Banking and Turning

Full Moon, Dow Lake, July

Two

Election-Day Raccoon

The Two of Us

After Learning of the Death of a Roommate I Hadn’t Seen in Forty Years

Holiday Party with Roses

Talking to Old People

Emanation

So, I Tell Myself

Autumn and the End of Autumn

In His Defense

Wood Frogs

Letter to the Editor

Utility

My Books

What We Don’t Know

Common Wisdom

A Kind of Proof

Dear