Roger Fanning‘s first collection of poetry, The Island Itself, was selected by Michael Ryan for the 1992 National Poetry Series. This was followed by two more poetry books, Homesick (2002) and The Middle Ages (2012). Fanning has taught at Syracuse University and in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. He lives in Seattle with his wife and son.
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The Island ItselfPoemsFrom"The Sorrow of Underwear"
From a side lane soft with lunar mulch
and thistledown I saw them, clipped alone
on a clothesline, a pair of diaphanous panties
as wide as an elephant’s forehead.
I sighed across the boy-mown lawn
and they shook as though they shed blessings
to the moon and her tongue-tied exiles.
Who would dare pour such panties
along his arms and throat? A murderer, maybe.
The Milky Way was pavement
compared to their luxury. I knew
I wouldn’t outwalk their whispers that night.
Next morning my feet felt like mallets.
I was back in the world where people
wear out, embarrassed by beautiful things,
and a garment fit for a goddess is nothing but big.
The Island Itself:Poems -
The Island ItselfPoemsFrom"In a Basement Somewhere A Civil Servant"
There a shirtless dwarf tilts ten cauldrons
of liquid gold, and brass. Pours it
into trophy shapes and molds for metals.
Grungy wet he shines gray, like a catfish
surfacing. Later on he shines less:
cutting out squares of lambskin
from little carcasses, for diplomas.
He labors all night. One day a week
a deaf young man lugs off the junk
we will covet, our names emblazoned.
Why must achievements be made official?
In a bad sleep the dwarf grinds green molars.
The Island Itself:Poems -
The Island ItselfPoemsFrom"Beyond the Cloud People"
By cloud people I mean elderly women
whose white hair poofs out: cumulocirrus.
Between the filaments blue ether flows.
It would be peaceful to lean my face in…
Why don’t I? After all, it’s okay to touch
a pregnant woman, an acquaintance, where she feels
the baby move; I feel it too. We love
the unborn because we love the ideal
of a safe place where even as adults
we can, as over a campfire, warm our hands.
But a cloud hairdo looks cool, cold
as a person’s last pillow. Oblivion we solo.
The Island Itself:Poems
“Fanning uses short, tightly controlled poems to investigate what it means to be a man in today's world . . . Fanning succeeds at presenting a hard, unsentimental look at modern life.” —Library Journal [on The Island Itself]
“The Island Itself is an extraordinary book—passionate, funny, tender, smart, heartbreaking. Still in his twenties, Roger Fanning writes poems of the highest imagination, utmost clarity, and a huge spirit. This work fills me with joy!” —Thomas Lux
"[Fanning] can keep life from being a long zombie convention . . . Anyone not a bonehead should read this book." —Mary Karr [on Homesick]
