Tag: Gail Thomas

Dictionary, 1950 by Gail Thomas

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Dictionary, 1950

The year I was born
Orwellian, McCarthyism and brain-
washed darkened the air
as the H-bomb hatched. Post-
nuclear declared, we’re done.
Beautiful people with spray
tans sought head shrinkers
and homosexuals were booted
to funny farms. Post war boom
birthed suburbs, the charge card
and money market. Even BLT
and DJ joined the rush to normalcy
while LSD and DWI said
not so fast. Don’t make a federal
case out of it, we’re just antsy,
kvetching, bugging out.
Don’t blame us, we’re busy
making a baby boom.
Don’t blame us, it’s them
with a switch knife, zip gun,
assault rifle. Wait, we need
to protect ourselves
from ourselves.

*

Gail Thomas’ books are Trail of Roots, Leaving Paradise, Odd Mercy, Waving Back, No Simple Wilderness, and Finding the Bear. Her poems have been widely published in journals and anthologies including CALYX, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, North American Review, Cumberland River Review, and South Florida Poetry Journal. Among her awards are the Seven Kitchens Press A.V. Christie Award for Trail of Roots, the Charlotte Mew Prize from Headmistress Press for Odd Mercy, the Narrative Poetry Prize from Naugatuck River Review, the Massachusetts Center for the Book’s “Must Read” for Waving Back, and the Quartet Review’s Editor’s Choice Prize. She has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony and Ucross, and several poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She teaches poetry with Pioneer Valley Writers’ Workshops, visits schools and libraries with her therapy dog Sunny, and works with immigrant and refugee communities in Western Massachusetts.

ONE ART’s Top 25 Most-Read Poets of 2023

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~ ONE ART’s Top 25 Most-Read Poets of 2023 ~

1. Abby E. Murray
2. Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
3. Betsy Mars
4. Donna Hilbert
5. Linda Laderman
6. Alison Luterman
7. Julie Weiss
8. Robbi Nester
9. Roseanne Freed
10. Karen Paul Holmes
11. Heather Swan
12. Timothy Green
13. James Diaz
14. Jane Edna Mohler
15. John Amen
16. Barbara Crooker
17. Jim Daniels
18. Susan Vespoli
19. Sean Kelbley
20. Susan Zimmerman
21. Kip Knott
22. Jennifer Garfield
23. Margaret Dornaus
24. Paula J. Lambert
25. Gail Thomas

Forgiveness, I am still working on it by Gail Thomas

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Forgiveness, I am still working on it

after five decades. You’d think
it would be easier, now that some
of the players have died
and those who don’t
care live far away.
This labor is not love,
except the selfish sort which
is to say it may release
the small dirge without
words locked in
my chest.

I’m close
to turning the page
on lies and betrayal,
even the absent father
of my children.

But not
the country neighbor
who reached inside
his kitchen door to grab
a rifle and kill
my black dog
who was barking at
a rabbit under his porch.

Home from the hospital
with my first baby
I heard the blast mixed
with her cries
and ran across the yard
sprung with violets.
He stood his ground.

I crawled back to bed
where grief and anger
seeped into my milk.
She cried for days.
In court he remained silent.
I repeated his admission.
The judge let him walk away.

For twenty years I kept
my vow to never
home another dog
until the Wyoming sky
said, you have never
seen a sky vast enough
to crack open
a fearful heart.

Since then I have chosen
and buried companions,
and now my trusting girl,
belly exposed, shows
how to recognize
joy and
admit its shadow
which will surely come.
I am still working on it.

*

Gail Thomas’ new books of poetry are Trail of Roots, winner of the A.V. Christie award from Seven Kitchens Press and Leaving Paradise from Human Error Publishing. She has four other books, and her poems are widely published in journals and anthologies. Awards include the Charlotte Mew Prize from Headmistress Press for Odd Mercy, Narrative Poetry Prize from Naugatuck River Review, and the Massachusetts Center for the Book’s “Must Read” for Waving Back. She teaches poetry for Pioneer Valley Writers’ Workshops, and volunteers helping resettle refugees and visiting libraries and schools with her “Reading Buddy” dog, Sunny.

Panacea by Gail Thomas

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Panacea

Tangled yellow grass turns chrome
under a gibbous prairie moon,
light sharp enough to saw bones.
Wind keens and sweeps the wells
of grief clean as an empty cabin.
Wilderness — its lure and demise —
the unmet hunger of human eyes.

*

Gail Thomas’ books are Odd Mercy, Waving Back, No Simple Wilderness, and Finding the Bear. Her poems have been widely published in journals and anthologies including CALYX, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, North American Review, and Mom Egg Review. Among her awards are the Charlotte Mew Prize from Headmistress Press for Odd Mercy, the Narrative Poetry Prize from Naugatuck River Review, and the Massachusetts Center for the Book’s “Must Read” for Waving Back. Thomas teaches for the Pioneer Valley Writers’ Workshops and has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony and Ucross. “Panacea” is included in Thomas’ forthcoming fifth collection Rust & Bloom.