Lauren Coodley's Poetry and New Deal Art

 
Above: "Collection Day," an oil painting by Criss Glasell (1898-1971), created while she was in the New Deal's Public Works of Art Project, 1933-1934. Image courtesy of the General Services Administration and the University of Iowa Museum of Art.

"I Salute Thursdays," by Lauren Coodley (2021)

I salute Thursdays
when the garbage trucks
rumble up the street,
when all waste of the week
is taken away bit by
bit. I remember the days
when I threw newspapers
off the back of my pickup,
when a beefy man with mad
eyes smashed all the glass
we tossed in the bins. Then.
Now, I salute the groaning
trucks, the knowledge
I have made it to another
Thursday, the lines of cans
on my block pretending that
nothing has changed, we can
continue to live in this
dying upside down world
where the garbage is still
collected. 

Above: "Ponies," a lithograph by Mildred Waltrip (1911-2004), created while she was in the WPA, ca. 1935-1943. Image courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.

"Wild Ponies," by Lauren Coodley (2021)

O the joy of

A cold rainy night in March

The wild wind slushing through

The bare branches, the daffodils

Shrinking in surprise, because

Wasn't it spring?

Not yet. The rain pours

Pebbles the roof and the gutter

Of this little house where I alone

Have come into my oldness.

Today my insides were photographed

To see if I live or die this year. My daughter

Drove me through the yellow mustard fields

The balmy blue of the sky--surely not rain--

We wondered, surely not, we did not say.

Tonight I lit a final fire, to kindle the

Coziness still not yet hot, and not fire

Weather outside, not yet. Another spring

Night of rain I didn't expect, and it pebbles

And bumps the sky is laughing snorting

Like the wild ponies I used to ride, hanging

On, whispering, faster, faster.

Above: The poems I've included in this blog post (and other poems by Lauren Coodley and her friend Paula Amen Judah) are in: Wellspring in the Wilderness, Dunsmuir, CA: Cordella Press, 2021. The collection of poems deal with pain (both emotional and physical), illness, memories of youth, and the impermanence of life. Image scanned from a personal copy.