CB Follet - Estado Unidos

Earth

Drink in the damp smell of earth:

it can heal.

When lights are blazing deep

behind your lids,

when outside force fields electrify,

there is earth,

loam rich, and smelling of deep seeds

awaiting their moment of thrust.

Crumble and squeeze, let it fall.

It does not change, sending out fragrances

to hang your shade hat on,

the one with the Quetzal feather

that Consuela gave you

on a yellow Mexican morning,

when your feet were dance bands,

and the dark clouds yet unknown.

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If She Could Keep The Sky

from leaking,

its blue skin stretched tight, so that air

precious and good to breathe

would not pour like money

out the holes and away on solar winds.

If she could hold it folded in her hands

the way she cups Earth.  If she could stretch out

her long self on the sky, if it would bend

to her curves, the weight

of elbows, shoulders, hips, her heels

roughing the blue,

if she could reach out both hands

and pull together the edges

of its holes as my grandmother darned socks,

handled one by one from the basket;

the darning egg, its smooth bald head

tucked firmly in the toe, in the heel;

and wove a quilt of stitches

like a maddened spider

until the mesh was thicker, stronger

than the sock itself,

if she could do that for the sky,

pull blue silk from her spinnerets

and darn the opening above those snow-massed poles,

if she would pull the clouds together,

blanket stitch their edges until the holes

had time to heal,

so that one day the sky would hang

smooth again

around the ball we call Earth,

if she would hold the sky, a silken cloth

light as the air we need and spread it

mended, blue from the north

until it covers us  safe  in her palm.

—CB Follet

CB Follett won the 2001 National Poetry Book Award for her Collection of poems "At the Turning of the Light" published by Salmon Run Press. She is the Poet Laureate of Marin County, CA (2010 to 2012).

Follett is the publisher and owner of Arctos Press and with Susan Terris was editor of RUNES, A Review of Poetry, an annual themed anthology, published until 2008.

CB Follett has had poems published in various publications and anthologies.

She has won the Portland Poetry Festival Competition, The New Press Literary Quarterly Prize, the Northwoods Journal National Poetry competition and a grant from the Marin Arts Council. Her poems have been awarded other contest prizes, including Third in the Billee Murray Denny, Honorable Mentions in the New Letters Prize, second, and third, in the Ann Stanford Prize, the National Poetry Book Award, the Michael W. Gearhart Memorial Prize Sun Dog, the Southeast Review, Black Bear Review Poetry Prize and many others. She has been runner up for the Robert H. Winner Memorial Award, the George Bogin Award and finalist in the Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award, all from Poetry Society of America. Six of her poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and she has been nominated three times as an individual poet.

Besides various chapbooks, and handmade books of her poems, she has five collections of poetry. The latest is Houses (Tebot Bach, 2011).

CB Follett ganó el Premio Nacional de Poesía del 2001 (USA) por su Colección de poemas "A la vuelta de la luz", publicado por Salmon Run Press.  Ella fue Poeta Laureada del Condado de Marin, CA (2010 a 2012). Follett es la editora y propietaria de Arctos Press y con Susan Terris fue editora de RUNES,, una antología poética anual temática, publicada hasta 2008. CB Follett ha publicado poemas en varias publicaciones y antologías. Ha ganado el Concurso del Festival de Poesía de Portland, el Premio Trimestral Literario New Press, el Concurso Nacional de Poesía Northwoods Journal y una beca del Marin Arts Council. Sus poemas han sido galardonados con otros premios de varios concursos, incluyendo Third en el Billee Murray Denny, han recibido menciones honoríficas en el New Letters Prize, segundo y tercero, en el Premio Ann Stanford, el National Poetry Book Award, el Michael W. Gearhart Memorial Prize Sun Dog, el Southeast Review, Black Bear Review Poetry Prize y muchos otros. Ha sido finalista del Premio Memorial Robert H. Winner, el Premio George Bogin y finalista en el Premio Alice Fay Di Castagnola, todos de la Sociedad de Poesía de América. Seis de sus poemas han sido nominados para un Premio Pushcart y ha sido nominada tres veces como poeta individual. Además de varios chapbooks y libros hechos a mano de sus poemas, tiene cinco colecciones de poesía. La última es Houses (Tebot Bach, 2011).