David Wagoner

Poetry

David Wagoner has published 20 books of poems, most recently, After the Point of No Return (Copper Canyon Press, 2012). He has also published ten novels, one of which, The Escape Artist, was made into a movie by Francis Ford Coppola. He won the Lilly Prize in 1991, six yearly prizes from Poetry, two yearly prizes from Prairie Schooner, and the Arthur Rense Prize for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2011. In 2007, his play First Class was given 43 performances at A Contemporary Theatre in Seattle. He was a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets for 23 years. He edited Poetry Northwest from 1966 to 2002, and he is professor emeritus of English at the U. of Washington. He teaches at the low-residency MFA program of the Whidbey Island Writers Workshop.

Used Doors and Windows For Sale

Here in this vacant lot
the dislocated doors
and windows have no houses
or even walls to hold them,
no thresholds or lintels
to turn away from, nothing
to close for or reopen
as they lean against each other,
no longer measuring
or defining the difference
between inside and outside,
but simply being themselves
as they were in the beginning,
reflecting the glancing blows
of sunlight, undersides
of leaves, the superior
appearances of clouds,
the indifference of the sky.