May 24: Poet of the Week, Claudia Emerson, "Catfish"

I am finding it harder and harder to choose new Poets of the Week.  I keep wanting to go back to my favorites like Sharon Olds and Maya Angelou and Mary Oliver and Billy Collins.  They are poets who make me feel good, who inspire me.

However, I have chosen a new Poet of the Week:  Claudia Emerson.  Emerson won the Pulitzer Prize a few years back for her collection Late Wife.  Tonight's poem is about a subject I know nothing about.  That's alright, though.

I am not feeling very reflective tonight about this poem.  It makes me see the world a little differently.  It doesn't make me want to go fishing or fry up some catfish for dinner, but it does make me want to write.

Saint Marty is leaving profound to Claudia Emerson.

Catfish

by:  Claudia Emerson

It nuzzles oblivion, confuses

             itself with mud. A creature

of familiar taste, it ambushes

               from its nest of ooze the pond's

brighter fish, clears its palate

              with their eggs, lumbers fat

and stagnant into winter, lulled

              into dreams of light sinking until

light drowns, and all is as before.