SATURDAY'S POEMS

FIVE "THAT WOMAN" POEMS
by Tom Montag

That woman -
her solitude,

what she says
of sorrow.

*

If I could
believe there's

nothing I need,
wouldn't she

agree with me,
that woman?

*

That woman
knew silence

was almost
enough.

*

"When you walk," that woman says,
"why do you race your sorrow?"

*

These conversations
with that woman who is not there -

what is she teaching?

Tom Montag of Fairwater, Wisconsin, is a middlewestern poet and essayist who has published numerous books of prose and poetry since 1972. His most recent work includes: Curlew: Home (memoir, 2001), Kissing Poetry's Sister (essays about writing and being a writer, 2002), The Sweet Bite of Morning (poems, 2003), and The Big Book of Ben Zen (poems, 2004). Middle Ground (1982) serves as his collected earlier poems. The Sweet Bite of Morning is from Montag's on-going project, "Plain Poems: A Fairwater Daybook." Montag is preparing two more collections of essays for publication, The Idea of the Local and Personal Papers and he continues to work at his long-term exploration of the middlewest, "Vagabond In the Middle." He is currently teaching Advanced Composition for Lakeland College, Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Along with Paul Zimmer, he was a featured writer at Lakeland's Great Lakes Writers Program on November 4-5, 2004. In February, 2005, he was a Tom McGrath Visiting Writer at Minnesota State University in Moorhead. In October, 2005, Montag delivered a presentation about his Vagabond project at the Marshall Festival - Celebration of Rural Writers and Rural Writing in Marshall, Minnesota. He will be reading at the Beloit Public Library on April 22 and at the University of Wisconsin-Stout on April 27. He will also read at the Wisconsin Writer's Conference in Baraboo this June and will make a presentation there on "Lorine's Toolbox: A Working Poet Examines Niedecker's Poetics." In September he will present "Writing Poetry Successfully: 99 Propositions" for the annual convention of the Wisconsin Regional Writer's Association. Christine Townsend's interview with Montag, conducted in October, 2003, can be read here; Peter Stephens interview with him in July, 2004, can be read here.

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A NOTE TO THE POETS OUT THERE
I'm interested in considering your "poems of place" for publication in The Middlewesterner's "Saturday's Poem" feature; send two or three of your best in the body of an e-mail addressed to [email protected] . Put "Saturday's Poem" in the subject line. Then be patient. I will get back to you about whether I'll use your work or not. Send along a short biographical note and information about where your books can be purchased and I'll include that when your poem runs. There's no payment involved for having your work appear in "Saturday's Poem," but the feature is seen by some few high class readers. Click here for complete index of and access to "Saturday's Poems" poems published prior to September 18, 2004.

Comments

[Fred Garber]

I enjoyed this series of poems. Stark...fill in the blank kind of poems. Almost an Epic in haiku size. By the way, I just read it for the fourth time but read it backwards starting with the last word. I like it that way too!

[Tom Montag]

Thanks, Fred. I'm not entirely sure what I've got ahold of here, but it's electric and I hope I can hold on.