Here in the Midwest, on the cusps of spring, on days when I wonder when winter will truly end, I welcome this deftly shaped reminder by David Baker of the season that has just passed.
He dramatizes beautifully the coming of winter and the way it takes hold of us. Baker’s title “Quicker” suggests movement and not stasis, something hopeful, even, in the promise that comes with the changing seasons.
Quicker
By David Baker
the season quicker now
the darkening—
no longer the leaves
fluttering down
but the whole shadowed earth
reaching up, taking hold
American Life in Poetry does not accept unsolicited manuscripts. It is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2022 by David Baker, “Quicker” from The Southern Review, 58:1, Winter 2022 Poem reprinted by permission of the author and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2022 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Kwame Dawes, is George W. Holmes Professor of English and Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner at the University of Nebraska.
