Poet's Choice

and staggered forward, convulsed, instinctive --

I thought it was sobbing to see it hump the dust,

pulsing out those muddy juices,

as if something, deep in the gizzard,

in the sack of soft nuggets,

drove it toward the amputated member.

Even then, watching it litter the ground

with snowy refusals, I knew it was this

that held life, gave life,

and not the head with its hard contemplative eye.

Well before the words "I thought," the poet is present here: in the vividly accurate description, in the peculiar simile for the brain ("like a lens"), in the cool, distancing intelligence of calling the head "abstracted" (Latin for "dragged off").

Contrasting verbs at the end dramatize a crucial moment of understanding: "I thought" introduces a kind of impression or illusion, projecting conscious grief onto the "convulsed, instinctive" staggering movement. In the next, climactic sentence, the verb is different: "I knew" introduces the distinct, unflinching awareness that the conscious mind is bound to, and limited by, its mortal host, the body. "Hard" and "contemplative" apply to the adamant and reflective nature of Voigt's own genius. She is a poet of knowledge, and knowledge in the living, messy world. This poem provides a suitable opening to her book.

(Ellen Bryant Voigt's poem "The Hen" is from her book "Messenger: New and Selected Poems 1976-2006." Norton. Copyright 2007 by Ellen Bryant Voigt.)

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Robert Pinsky's most recent book of poetry is "Jersey Rain."