- For all the questions…*
For all the questions answer then brings up,
those timed-to-life questions do get answered,
if through dumb time the question runs, then out.
Timed-out, it's neither possible nor done,
not even gone, to mourn not been, to miss.
There is a true difference between the tried disappointment and the non-event. [End Page 641]
Ed Roberson is Distinguished Artist in Residence at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He is author of eight books of poetry: The New Wing of the Labyrinth (Singing Horse Press, 2009), City Eclogue (Atelos, 2006), Atmosphere Conditions (Sun & Moon Press, 2000; winner of the 2000 National Poetry Award), Just In / Word of Navigational Challenges: New and Selected Poems (Talisman House, 1998), Voices Cast Out to Talk Us In (University of Iowa Press, 1995; winner of the 1994 Iowa Poetry Prize), Lucid Interval as Integral Music (University of Iowa Press, 1995; winner of the Iowa Poetry Prize), Etai-Eken (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1975), and When Thy King Is a Boy (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1970). In 2008, he received the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America.
Footnotes
* "For all the questions…" will be published in Ed Roberson's forthcoming volume of poetry, To See the Earth Before the End of the World (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan UP, 2010). Printed with permission from Wesleyan University Press.