Read poems from Steve's award-nominated book!

Steve's style continues to be a favorite with readers and editors. His poems, while simple and accessible on the surface, often open a complex recall within the reader, through beautifully crafted images and language. Poems in the book have been described as having the impact of short, short stories. Enjoy pieces from his book which was and entrant for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry and for a National Book Award.

Friday, December 17, 2010




Beaver Creek


The sounds were the same forty years ago,
but we shrugged off the babbling brook,
the gurgling crick, the rushing water;
clichés that could not choke
the fluid chords.

She still has a croaking throat
of limestone boulders, which spills
low tones over a gravelly tongue.
Through lips of sand and reeds
she begins every conversation the same,
“Do you remember when…”

I sweeten my mouth with a BB-sized
teaberry—it tingles my jaw like dill—
and wait for her question to disappear
before I answer, “Yes, I do.”