Daniel Bourne

Daniel Bourne’s books of poetry include The Household Gods and Where No One Spoke the Language. His poems have appeared in Field, Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, Guernica, Salmagundi, Shenandoah, Prairie Schooner, Plume, and others. He teaches in English and Environmental Studies at The College of Wooster, where he is the editor of Artful Dodge. Since 1980 he has also lived in Poland, including 1985-87 on a Fulbright for the translation of younger Polish poets and, most recently in 2018 and 2019.

Mid-Winter In Gdańsk

Europe, a room
in which a cigarette

is the only source of heat. Pigeons
purr in their meekness.

I should be happy
they will inherit the earth.

The damp nets hanging to dry
in Jelitkowo. So why do I think

of my village in Illinois
tiny o of the map

a carp feeding in a pond
the spreading ripple from its lips?