'A Future Close Enough to Smell'

One of my favorite contemporary poets is Deborah Warren, who lives in Massachusetts. She’s smart, technically adroit, has a musical ear and a sense of humor – rare qualities among poets today. Some of her poems stick with me, memorability being a prerequisite of first-rate verse. My mind is associative. One thing leads to another, not always for conscious or logical reasons, though sometimes the linkage is obvious, as with her poem “Down-to-Earth”: “In the field the coyote yip-yips imminent danger; the dog in the kitchen rumbles a basso growl; the field sends back a shrill elastic baying; the kitchen gives a soprano howl. “These two aren’t discussing climate change, war, flu, layoffs; in this dialogue a well-informed coyote’s not relaying to a pessimistic dog “grounds for worry—national cases of mange, the mountain lion population swelling, a cougar-sighting fifteen miles away— only a future close enough to smell.” I had been thinking, rather absently, about my brief spell of working…

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