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Robert Pinsky, Former Poet Laureate
of the United States

Robert Pinsky, until the end of 2000, served for two terms as Poet Laureate of the United States and developed the "Favorite Poem Project" which garnared much attention for poetry throughout the United States. His latest book is JERSEY RAIN [Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2000] from which the following poem comes. Robert Pinsky has published several volumes of poetry, among them are The FIGURED WHEEL: Collected Poems, 1996, and The Inferno of Dante, 1994. His book, The SOUNDS of POETRY, 1999 was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism. Creator and director of the Favorite Poem Project and poetry editor of Slate, he also teaches in the graduate program at Boston University. [Jacket Design by Lynn Buckley. Photo by Sigfried Estrada. Poem © 2000 by the author and reprinted by permission of the author. All rights reserved by the author and his publisher, Farrar Strauss and Giroux: NY.]

Jersey Rain

Now near the end of the middle stretch of road

What have I learned? Some earthly wiles. An art.

That often I cannot tell good fortune from bad,

That once had seemed so easy to tell apart.

The source of art and woe aslant in wind

Dissolves or nourishes everything it touches.

What roadbank gullies and ruts it doesn't mend

It carves the deeper, boiling tawny in ditches.

It spends itself regardless into the ocean.

It stains and scours and makes things dark or bright:

Sweat of the moon, a shroud of benediction,

The chilly liquefaction of day to night,

The Jersey rain, my rain, soaks all as one:

It smites Metuchen, Rahway, Saddle River,

Fair Haven, Newark, Little Silver, Bayonne.

I feel it churning even in fair weather

To craze distinction, dry the same as wet.

In ripples of heat the August drought still feeds

Vapors in the sky that swell to drench my state-

The Jersey rain, my rain, in streams and beads

Of indissoluble grudge and aspiration:

Original milk, replenisher of grief,

Descending destroyer, arrowed source of passion,

Silver and black, executioner, source of life.

Copyright © 2000 by Robert Pinsky from JERSEY RAIN, Farrar Strauss and Giroux: NY.

All rights, including electronic rights of all kinds, are reserved by the author.

Reprinted by permission of the author.

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