Among the many superb poems we published last year as Poems of the Week, five stood out for their deep humanity and intelligence. These poems, one by a Frenchman, one by a Belarussian, and three by Americans, provide a keyhole through which we can peer at a woman who has suffered in war; a father and child at their kitchen table; a woman buried in an Egyptian tomb; a lover who cannot bear to leave; a traveler extolling us to live.
The Poem of the Week series for 2009–2010 begins next Sunday. If you would like to send a poem for consideration as a Poem of the Week, please see our Guidelines. Each October the Top Five Poems are selected for special notice.
Congratulations to the winners. Each receives a $200 award.
Jean Joubert
In the Kitchen
The child writes, Child, and is amazed at this word.
Sarah Lindsay
What They Found
Her city, but no cats. Specks of color, no cloth.
Valzhyna Mort
Belarusian I
At dark a chariot arrives and no one sees you anymore.
Ed Skoog
Little Song
To leave you is like refusing to wake.
C. D. Wright
Like Hearing Your Name Called in a Language You Don’t Understand
2010 National Book Critics Circle Award Winner
