National Poetry Month Selection: 'The Fiddleheads' Return'
In honor of National Poetry Month, which has been celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, Newtown Poet Laureate Lisa Schwartz is sharing some of her favorite works by local poets.homegrown writer Amy Nawrocki. "The Fiddleheads' Return" comes from her book, Four Blue Eggs, published by Homebound Publications (2014).Reconnaissance (Homebound Publications, 2015).Reconnaissance as "a warm, rich, valuable and important collection. I most highly recommend it for … reading and rereading."A History of Connecticut Food and Literary Connecticut. She lives in Hamden, and teaches English and Creative Writing at University of Bridgeport.The Fiddleheads' Return
To close out the month-long celebration of poetry, Ms Schwartz has chosen a poem by
Amy Nawrocki grew up in Sandy Hook and graduated from Newtown High School in 1991. She earned her BA at Sarah Lawrence College, and her MFA from University of Arkansas. Ms Nawrocki is the author of five poetry collections, most recently
Dick Allen, the former Poet Laureate of Connecticut, referred to
Along with her husband Eric D. Lehman, Ms Nawrocki is also the author of three Connecticut history books, including
When the first dew
of spring warms the early worm
out of hibernation
a covenant is rendered.
Young ferns, yellow with greenness,
nudge out from the deep,
snow-melted soil, poking through
centuries of death.
They leave comfort for hazards
of exposure, the burdens
of life. The new hope
coils slowly around the nub
of itself, the stalk
moves with incremental
sadness toward a timepiece
skies away. Soon
music forms at the edge
of delicate spirals,
music steeped in translation:
what loam says to darkness
in the cold moon hour,
how sunbeams brew the sacred
molecule to freshen
a poorly lit universe,
how the head of a fiddle
emerges out of
the clean violin of time,
strings tuned to the key
of true green assurance,
of repetition, the promise
of night music,
and the return of morning's
trusted, distant chord.
-Amy Nawrocki