Poetry Friday--"The Writer"

I love when the unexpected comes along. For instance, I took the newly purchased The Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry [811.5 PEN] off the shelf and opened it at random. My eyes landed on "The Writer" by Richard Wilbur. I hadn't expected to find a poem about writing right off the bat!

The Writer

In her room at the prow of the house
Where light breaks, and the windows are tossed with linden,
My daughter is writing a story.

I pause in the stairwell, hearing
From her shut door a commotion of typewriter-keys
Like a chain hauled over a gunwale.

Young as she is, the stuff
Of her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy:
I wish her a lucky passage.

But now it is she who pauses,
As if to reject my thought and its easy figure.
A stillness greatens, in which

The whole house seems to be thinking,
And then she is at it again with a bunched clamor
Of strokes, and again is silent.

Read the rest here.

I'm sure I'll be dipping into The Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry again and I hope to find the unexpected waiting there for me!

This week's Poetry Friday Round-Up is being hosted at A Year of Reading.