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Today's poem is "Abecedarian for the Power Outage"

from The Southern Review

Catherine Pierce is the Poet Laureate of Mississippi and the author of four books of poems, most recently Danger Days (Saturnalia 2020). Her work has appeared in the New York Times, The Best American Poetry, the Pushcart Prize anthology, The Nation, American Poetry Review, The Southern Review, and elsewhere. A recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Academy of American Poets, she teaches at Mississippi State University.

Other poems by Catherine Pierce in Verse Daily:
March 5, 2022:   "Probably It Will Be Summer Again" "one of these days, and if it is I'll swim..."
June 15, 2021:   "We Live in the Most Exquisite Terrarium" "The fresh macadam is glossed with rain..."
March 30, 2021:   "Abecedarian for the Dangerous Animals" "All frantic and drunk with new warmth, the bees..."
August 28, 2020:   "If/When" "The poem I planned to write..."
February 4, 2020:   "Entreaty" "Dear spring, commit. Burst..."
February 18, 2019:   "Poem for the Woods" "Not as I would dream them now, not with growls..."
May 22, 2017:   "The Town Dreams the Tornado Apologizes" "And then we woke up. And our uncles..."
October 7, 2014:   "The Tornado Wants a Companion" "No one wants the whirling all the time...."
September 8, 2008:   "The Guidance Counselor to the Girl" "The test suggests an aptitude for solitary work..."
June 24, 2008:   "'This is Funny'" "Not the whiskey, though that, too..."
July 10, 2004:  "Nor Hell a Fury" "I am the step that creaks...."

Other poems on the web by Catherine Pierce:
"I Wonder if the Guy Who Catcalled Me in the Blockbuster Parking Lot When I Was 15 Ever Thinks About That"
"How Becoming a Mother Is Like Space Travel"
"All the Dead Animals"
"In Praise of the Horror Movie"
"I Kept Getting Books about Birds"
"Anthropocene Pastoral"
Three poems
"Poem from the Hidden Passage"
"Chadwick Lake, 8:15 a.m."
"Disaster Work"
"The Tornado Visits the Town"
"Narrative Theory"
Two poems
Two poems
"Last Meal"
"Poem: Precautions"
"Dear Day,"
"Love Poem To America"
Four poems
"This Is Not an Elegy"
"Poem from the Girls We Were"
"Instinct"
Two poems
"Reading Faulkner at 17, You Foresee Your Reckoning"
"I Go Back to Ohio"

Catherine Pierce's Website.

Catherine Pierce on Twitter.

About The Southern Review:

Subscription: 1 year (4 issues), $40 individual
The Southern Review * 3990 W. Lakeshore Dr * Baton Rouge, LA 70808
Editors: Jessica Faust and Cara Blue Adams

Other from the Southern Review in Verse Daily:
May 22, 2024:   "After Watching the Documentary about the Young Solo Climber Marc-AndrĂ© My Friend Asks, 'Are We All Born to Do Exactly What We Do?'" by Lara Egger
May 17, 2024:   "In the Horse Stall" by karla k. morton
April 5, 2024:   "Memory" by Kevin Prufer
April 4, 2024:   "Holiday" by Terence Winch
April 3, 2024:   "Winter Solstice" by Jehanne Dubrow
November 22, 2023:   "Unwelcome" by Ross White
November 13, 2023:   "Death Dream" by Denise Duhamel
November 12, 2023:   "In Praise of Echo" by Jeanne Wagner
September 29, 2023:   "Heir" by Kara van de Graaf
September 26, 2023:   "In the Afterlife," by Kim Addonizio
June 7, 2023:   "Meuse" by Elinor Ann Walker
February 24, 2023:   "Waiting Room" by Jane Zwart
February 12, 2023:   "What I Wish My Dog Understood" by Winniebell Xinyu Zong
February 11, 2023:   "What I Wish My Dog Understood" by Terry L. Kennedy
February 9, 2023:   "Tense Song" by Don Bogen
February 8, 2023:   "Drink Me" by Bonnie Jo Campbell
October 14, 2022:   "Erstwhile Island Gardener" by Lynne Knight
October 4, 2022:   "The Problem With Maps" by Charles Rafferty
July 11, 2022:   "Crown for the Girl Inside" by Lisa Low
July 8, 2022:   "Because Everything Here Is a Brightness" by John Sibley Williams
July 7, 2022:   "Last Day at Brinkwood" by Adam Vines
July 6, 2022:   "Violin" by Gail Martin
July 5, 2022:   "Quetzalcoatl in the City" by Jose Hernandez Diaz
May 11, 2022:   "Milk" by Julia B. Levine
May 10, 2022:   "Invoice" by Danielle Cadena Deulen
December 3, 2021:   "I'm Thinking of a Few Spectacular Ways to Die" by Jeffrey Skinner
December 2, 2021:   "For the Actor Luke Perry, Who Chose to Be Buried in a Biodegradable Funeral Suit Infused with Mushroom Mycelia" by Anna Journey
September 25, 2021:   "Fairy Tale" by Amorak Huey
September 14, 2021:   "An Offense" by Lee Upton
September 13, 2021:   "Not a Bad World, Is It?" by Bruce Bond
February 24, 2021:   "Poem After Watching An Inconvenient Truth With My Students" by Emma Bolden
February 23, 2021:   "Dad Poem" by Joshua Bennett
February 22, 2021:   "Foal" by Maggie Smith
January 15, 2021:   "Presumptive Elegy for Ken" by Paul Guest
January 14, 2021:   "The Mechanical Eves" by Rebecca Morgan Frank
January 13, 2021:   "After the Fire" by Jane Springer
August 28, 2020:   "If/When" by Catherine Pierce
May 7, 2020:   "Invitation to Tender" by Lynne Knight
May 6, 2020:   "So Much for America" by Amaud Jamaul Johnson
April 23, 2020:   "Scuttle" by John A. Nieves
November 11, 2019:   "The Horn of Plenty Sits Empty" by Meghan McClure
November 10, 2019:   "Only Autumn" by Barbara Swift Brauer
July 6, 2019:   "Kick in the Jaw" Dan Albergotti
July 5, 2019:   "Refraction at Twilight" Alice Friman
July 4, 2019:   "The Father of Our Country" Kim Roberts
February 16, 2019:   "Here, now, gone" Elinor Ann Walker
August 24, 2017:   Two poems by Stephen Gibson
August 22, 2017:   "Virgule" by Michael McFee
August 21, 2017:   "Where Another Lets Go" by Paul Hunter
October 28, 2015:   "Driving to Work" by A. M. Brandt
July 25, 2014:   "To the Stars through Difficulties" by Christina Olson
May 12, 2014:   "The life-and-death world of carpentry" by Elinor Ann Walker
May 6, 2014:   "Some Math, Some Words" by Elinor Ann Walker
May 4, 2014:   "Affirmative Action Babies" by Lynne Knight
November 25, 2013:   "Confession" by Carrie Shipers
November 24, 2013:   "Penillion of Riding Past the Radio Astronomy Observatory Amid Hedges and Fields" by John Kinsella
November 23, 2013:   "Under the Sun" by Chard deNiord
November 22, 2013:   "Alligators" by karla k. morton
January 11, 2013:   "Mothering" by Michael McCarthy
January 9, 2013:   "Zombie Preparedness Plan" by Mary Jo Firth Gillett
January 8, 2013:   "feeder" by Beth Bachmann
November 9, 2012:   "Straw Poll" by Michael McFee
November 8, 2012:   "Somehow, We Are a We" by Kimberly Grey
September 24, 2012:   "Daily" by John A. Nieves
September 21, 2012:   "Why Our Mothers Panic" by Sarah Kain Gutowski
February 19, 2012:   "Elegy for a Game" by Mary Ruefle
February 16, 2012:   "Words, what is the word, matter" by Elinor Ann Walker
January 26, 2012:   "Thames Music" by William Wenthe
September 23, 2011:   "Questions about the Wife" by Rebecca Hazelton
September 22, 2011:   "Coxwain" by Nance Van Winckel
November 13, 2010:   "The Former Pirate on His Way Back to Lisbon" by Weston Cutter
May 27, 2010:   "Dead Telegram to a Dead Poet" by Bruce Cohen
March 2, 2010:   "Teaching 'The Red Wheelbarrow' the Thirtieth Time" by Wendy Barker
January 9, 2010:   "Elegy as Spot's Lift-the-Flap Book" by Victoria Chang
January 8, 2010:   "An Algebra of Fifty" by Catherine Abbey Hodges
September 12, 2009:   "I Was Thinking of Beauty" by Sydney Lea
September 11, 2009:   "Cosmonauts" by Rhett Iseman Trull
June 5, 2009:   "Teaching Mrs. Dalloway I'm Thinking" by Weston Cutter
June 3, 2009:   "Rain on the Roof" by Beverley Bie Brahic
June 2, 2009:   "Questions about Birds" by Billy Collins
February 20, 2009:   "In the Horse Stalls and Sundays" by David Bottoms
November 21, 2008:   "Approaching Thunder" by Amaud Jamaul Johnson
November 20, 2008:   "Patterns" by Theodore Worozbyt
August 29, 2008:   "A Convincing Story" by Beth Bretl
August 28, 2008:   "Siren Song for Late September" by Alice Friman
August 27, 2008:   "Scavengers" by Fleda Brown
August 26, 2008:   "Settle" by Chanda Feldman
May 11, 2008:   "Midden" by Brendan Galvin
February 3, 2008:   "Hordes of Indigent Psychologist" by Scott Coffel
January 29, 2008:   "Runaway Bride" by Allison Seay
November 10, 2007:   "Columba livia" by Sandra Meek
November 9, 2007:   "Poltergeist" by Jennifer Metsker
November 6, 2007:   "A celebration of lasting achievment" by Bob Hicok
August 5, 2007:   "Be the Dog" by J. Allyn Rosser
August 2, 2007:   "Haruspicy" by Sarah Hannah
June 6, 2007:   "Not Mattering to the Earth" by Colette Inez
June 5, 2007:   "Something in My Eye" by Allison Smythe
February 9, 2007:   "Mysterious Ways" by Alison Pelegrin
September 15, 2006:   "God of The" by Garrett Doherty
September 14, 2006:   "One Morning a Rose Blooms" by Richard Tillinghast
September 13, 2006:   "Aubade" by Rhoda Janzen
June 22, 2006:   "Trouble." by Melissa Stein
June 19, 2006:   "Love of Sport" by Bob Hicok
January 19, 2006:   "Key to Pronunciation: /sälm/" by Rita Mae Reese
January 17, 2006:   "Leaving the Land" by Stephen C. Behrendt
January 16, 2006:   "The Clown's Mother" by Brent Pallas
November 25, 2004:  "Founder's day" by Bob Hicok
November 24, 2004:  "In Thrush Light" by Gyorgyi Voros
November 23, 2004:  "To Acedia" by Daniel Tobin
November 22, 2004:  "Close Quarters" by Cathryn Essinger
September 25, 2004:  "Dry Brush Painting of Winter Crows" by Barry Sternlieb
September 23, 2004:  "James McNeill Whistler at St. Ives, 1883" by Floyd Skloot
September 22, 2004:  "Keep and Give Away" by Susan Meyers
September 21, 2004:  "The Wife of Job" by Morri Creech
September 20, 2004:  "Indian River Inlet" by Fleda Brown
March 10, 2004:  "See! I Will Not Forget You. I Have Carved You on the Palm of My Hand." by Thomas Reiter
March 9, 2004:  "Mary Rockwell Talks to Her Son in the Hospital after He's Been Stabbed During a Fencing Lesson" by Julianna Baggott
August 20, 2003:  "Water Rising" by Fleda Brown
August 19, 2003:  "Neither the Season, nor the Place" by Susan Meyers
August 18, 2003:  "Revival" by Lynn Powell
June 7, 2003:  "The Reliquary" by Ann Townsend
June 5, 2003:  "Hieronymus and the Lion" by Maurya Simon
June 3, 2003:  "Pink Salmon" by Cecily Parks
May 1, 2003:  "Heron" by John Drury
April 29, 2003:  "For the Fog Horn When There Is No Fog" by Sarah Hannah
December 30, 2002:  "Brains" by Rodney Jones
December 16, 2002:  Heaven by Natasha Saje
September 9, 2002:  "My Emotions Are Like Fish" by John Brehm

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