Ridl, Jack

United States, (b. 1944)

“TOGETHER IN THE BACK YARD”
— an artwork by Sidnea D’Amico

  1. Even if the morning sky turns blue,
  2. the sunlight glazing the hog’s back.
  3.  
  4. Even if the night sky is a scrim
  5. for each star they can see. Even
  6.  
  7. if a light rain rattles on the old tin roof,
  8. fills the trough and softens them
  9.  
  10. to sleep, they will wear the same rat-
  11. tattered clothes, her dress hemmed
  12.  
  13. in mud, his shirt a torn and filthy
  14. robe of slop and swill. Where are
  15.  
  16. the children? The hog is huge. The
  17. days are days. On every slab of land
  18.  
  19. the same muck. And they stay, stand,
  20. slogged: she, he, the rain, and the hog.

 Jack Ridl. Rattle, #49, Fall 2015. The Rattle Foundation – https://www.rattle.com/.

Clown

  1. Every day he disappears
  2. rubbing the thick, white paint
  3. deep into his web of wrinkles,
  4. down his leathered neck, across
  5. his forehead, watching the old
  6. skin turn into Jocko, interlocutor
  7. of laughs. He lives hidden
  8. behind the diamond eyes,
  9. red glob of a nose, mouth
  10. petrified wide in a grin.
  11. He’s glad to lose his face
  12. behind the permanence
  13. of clown. Entering the center
  14. ring, he pushes a piglet
  15. in a wobbly, wicker pram,
  16. stops under the spotlight,
  17. stoops, and slowly steps into
  18. a little red schoolhouse.
  19. The audience quiets, waits,
  20. and when the band strikes up
  21. “Pomp and Circumstance,”
  22. the pig, full-grown in cap and
  23. gown, strolls out, Jocko trailing
  24. on a silver leash. They promenade
  25. once around the ring, then out
  26. and back to the trailer where
  27. Jocko hangs up the leash, sits,
  28. feels the entrance of gratitude
  29. for his red nose and graven smile.
  30. As he scrubs away the whiteface,
  31. red and yellow paint, the silver
  32. stars above each eyebrow, a face
  33. appears, one he doesn’t recognize,
  34. one that stares then turns away.

 Jack Ridl. Practicing to Walk Like a Heron. Detroit: Wayne State University Press (2013).

About the Poet:

Jack Ridl, United States, (b. 1944), is a poet and educator. Ridl graduated from Westminster College, Pennsylvania with a BA in 1967 and M.Ed., in 1970. Ridl was a professor at Hope College from 1971 until retiring in 2006. He and his wife, Julie, founded the college’s program now know as the Jack Ridl Visiting Writers Series.

The author of seven collections of poetry, Ridl is also co-author with Peter Schakel of Approaching Poetry: Perspectives and Responses (1996) and 250 Poems: A Portable Anthology (2008).

Ridl’s work has appeared in LIT, The Georgia Review, FIELD, Poetry, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Gulf Coast, The Denver Quarterly, Chelsea, Free Lunch, The Journal, Passages North, Dunes Review, Poetry East and others. [DES-06/22]

 • Biographies here are short. Yet all the poets presented have fascinating lives. And they have created a bountiful trough of treasures beyond these works. Please root on about those you enjoy! I hope you find something informative, meaningful or that provokes your further contemplation.

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