Michael Fulop

There is so much green in the summer.
It is like a book with green pages.
And on the pages a script of green writing.
The words at first are difficult to make out.

But then you see.
The writing says:
In the summer the trees have green eyes.
In the summer the violins are green.

Chosen By: KS Keeney, Webmaster

It’s incredibly impressive that a poem manages to use ‘green’ in two-thirds of its lines without a single one feeling stale. The brevity of the poem helps with this, as does the way the language is sparse enough to allow these different uses to shine. Each ‘green’ feels separate from the last, a new hue created by the language around it. The poem almost feels like a form, like the repetition should be part of a larger construction, but instead you end up being consistently surprised by the next piece of the poem. As Fulop says, “The words at first are difficult to make out. / But then you see.”

Art

Bill Wolak, “The Last Promise” phoebe 48.1