Frank Bidart Reads on the Fourth of July

Here's a poem to contemplate during a fireworks (or firefly) display from Frank Bidart, award-winning poet who reads at the NYS Summer Writers Institute in Saratoga on July 4th:

The Third Hour of the Night
by Frank Bidart

When the eye

When the edgeless screen receiving

light from the edgeless universe

When the eye first

When the edgeless screen facing

outward as if hypnotized by the edgeless universe

When the eye first saw that it

Hungry for more light

resistlessly began to fold back upon itself TWIST

As if a dog sniffing

Ignorant of origins

familiar with hunger

As if a dog sniffing a dead dog....

 

Read more: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/146745

 

Bidart has a new collection out, Metaphysical Dog (2013). Writing in the NY Times, Stephen Burt says, "Bidart writes through passion, but also through subtraction, leaving out all but the statements that seem essential to the soul, the desire, the wisdom or the memory at hand. The results, however austere, can be revelations: his poems are doors best opened with cautious attention — behind them you might even see yourself." More: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/30/books/review/metaphysical-dog-poems-by-frank-bidart.html?_r=0

 

The complete summer reading schedule here: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/sumread.html. All events are free and open to the public.