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Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry: Porcupine
Edited and introduced by Wesley McNair, Maine Poet Laureate
Tom Sexton divides his time between Alaska and Maine, spending half of every year in Eastport. His poem describes the movement of a porcupine through the twists, turns, and surprises of a single sentence. Sexton writes, “I hope my short lines move as slowly as the porcupine does.”
Porcupine By Tom Sexton
Its movement on the ground is that of a bag of stones rolled downhill, a spilled quiver of black- tipped arrows, but now, on this cold March morning, it is raising the dark flag of itself to the top of an ancient tree like an explorer claiming the world in the name of all that is Porcupine.
Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Poem copyright © 2009 by Tom Sexton. Reprinted from For the Sake of the Light, University of Alaska Press, 2009, by permission of Tom Sexton. Questions about submitting to Take Heart may be directed to David Turner, Special Assistant to the Maine Poet Laureate, at poetlaureate@mainewriters.org or 207-228-8263.