ALARMING BEAUTY OF THE SKY, THE

Frontmatter

The Alarming Beauty of the Sky poems Leslie Monsour Red Hen Press Los Angeles The Alarming Beauty of the Sky Copyright © 2005 by Leslie Monsour ALL RIGHTS RESERVED No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatever without the prior written permission of both the publisher and the copyright owner. Book design by MichaelVukadinovich Cover Design by Mark E. Cull ISBN: 1-59709-006-9 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2005900678 Published by Red Hen Press The City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department, California Arts Council , Los Angeles County Arts Commission and National Endowment for the Arts partially support Red Hen Press. First Edition In memory of my mother, Margaret Browning, “Hollywood’sYoungest Poet” Acknowledgments Journals: Birmingham Poetry Review:“The NaturalWorld,”“Rainy Eclipse,”“The Memory ofAbortion Unexpectedly Returns”;Hellas:“Looking forAlligators Near Kennedy Space Center,”“Metamorphosis”;The Lyric:“The PeachTree”;The Plum Review: “Parking Lot,” “Middle Age” ; Fourteen Hills: “Second Honeymoon” ; Able Muse:“Film Noir,”“Reading Robert Frost. . . ,”“A Feminine Riposte . . .” ; Poetry: “Nimis Compos Mentis ,”“Travel Plans,”“Sightseers,”“Dividing China” ; The Dark Horse: “My Old Man, Picking Lemons,”“The Old Capitalist ”; The Edge City Review: “The Bachelor”; The Formalist:“The Education of a Poet”; Pivot:“Illusion of Loss,”“I Felt the Tree Go Bare,”“The Snail in the Marigold,”“Odyssey,” ;“Keeping Up Appearances”; Schuylkill Valley Journal of theArts:“Fifties Music,”“Time + Distance”— Jim Marinell Grand Poetry Prize Winner (reprinted from Travel Plans R. L. Barth Press, 2001) Anthologies: A Formal Feeling Comes.Poems in Form by ContemporaryWomen ed.Annie Finch. Story Line Press, 1994 (“Emily’sWords,”“Metamorphosis,”“Sweeping”)Visiting Emily: Contemporary Poems Inspired by the Life and Work of Emily Dickinson eds.Thom Tammaro, Sheila Coghill. University of Iowa Press, 2000 (“Emily’s Words”) New Formalist Poets of the AmericanWest ed.April Lindner. Boise State University Press, 2001 (“Emily’sWords,”“Parking Lot”) Northern Music. Poems about and Inspired by Glenn Gould ed.J.D.Smith.John Gordon Burke Publisher, Inc.,2001 (“The Last Concert”) California Poetry from the Gold Rush to the Present eds. Dana Gioia, Chryss Yost, Jack Hicks. Heydey Books, 2003 (“Parking Lot,”“Nimis Compos Mentis”) Chapbooks: Earth’s Beauty,Desire,& Loss.Robert L.Barth Press.1998 Indelibility.Aralia Press. 1999 Travel Plans. Robert L. Barth Press. 2001 ...