Poetry Pairs: Abigail Carroll’s ‘What Men Die For Lack Of’ the Malotte

Over at Poetry for Life, we’ve been pairing poems with things or people that mean a lot to us. I mention the friend who gave me Carroll’s collection Habitation of Wonder, when I was in need of a poetry pick-me-up.

The poem “What Men Die For Lack Of” is composed of lines from other poems. I decided to write my own poem, using lines or parts of lines or mashups of lines from poems I’ve learned by heart over the last several months.

A few words brings it all back.

Glory Be

Glory be to God for all things counter, original, spare, strange
for three long mountains and a wood
for coffee at this table
for the secret of life in a sudden line of poetry.
Would I love it this way if these very birds were not singing?
Don’t you fall now.
The bright stillness of the noon, a hawk,
a crow’s dust of snow,
a tall ship, sea-gulls crying
aqua Ford convertible, a sack of red apples.
Something bids my hair stand up because
the wolf is in the music.
And here is a smaller gift –
sparrows, still singing.

– Megan Willome

“Megan Willome has captured the essence of crow in this delightful children’s collection. Not only do the poems introduce the reader to the unusual habits and nature of this bird, but also different forms of poetry as well.”

—Michelle Ortega, poet and children’s speech pathologist