G.C. Waldrep

BELL BUOY, OTTER CLIFFS

Acadia National Park

And the spirit says, Wake.

And the birches say,
Do you want to talk about this
no I don’t want to talk about
this okay okay then what do
you want to talk about I don’t
want to talk at all then what
do you want to do if not talk
really we must do something—

etc. etc.
b/c birches, the social tree.

Because
the soul is magnetic, meaning
it contains iron.

This much is certain. Not,
what is the manner
of your choosing.

Noon. I hoard my shadow.

All things
end here, is what the soul,
waking, says.

It is mistaken.
The spirit says, Try again.

• Bell Buoy, Otter Cliffs

  
  

  An audio-only reading by the author of the poem, "Bell Buoy, Otter Cliffs," by G.C. Waldrep, who visited Acadia National Park as a Writer-in-Residence in 2019.

  Credit / Author:

  G.C. Waldrep, Writer-in-Residence 2019

  Date created:

  11/19/2020

  Audio Transcript

  BELL BUOY, OTTER CLIFFS

  And the spirit says, Wake.

  And the birches say, Do you want to talk about this no I don’t want to talk about this okay okay then what do you want to talk about I don’t want to talk at all then what do you want to do if not talk really we must do something—

  etc. etc. b/c birches, the social tree.

  Because the soul is magnetic, meaning it contains iron.

  This much is certain. Not, what is the manner of your choosing.

  Noon. I hoard my shadow.

  All things end here, is what the soul, waking, says.

  It is mistaken. The spirit says, Try again.

G.C. Waldrep is the author most recently of the collection feast gently (Tupelo, 2018); a long poem, Testament (BOA Editions, 2015); and a chapbook, Susquehanna (Omnidawn, 2013). Waldrep’s poems have appeared in Poetry, Ploughshares, APR, Paris Review, New England Review, New American Writing, Harper’s, Tin House, Verse, and many other journals in the USA and abroad, as well as in the Best American Poetry anthology series and the 2nd edition of Norton’s Postmodern American Poetry. With Ilya Kaminsky he co-edited Homage to Paul Celan (Marick, 2011) and with Joshua Corey he co-edited The Arcadia Project: North American Postmodern Pastoral (Ahsahta, 2012).

Waldrep’s work has received prizes from the Poetry Society of America and the Academy of American Poets as well as the Colorado Prize, the Dorset Prize, the Campbell Corner Prize, two Pushcart Prizes, a Gertrude Stein Award for Innovative American Writing, and a 2007 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Literature.

He lives in Lewisburg, Pa., where he teaches at Bucknell University and edits the journal West Branch. From 2007 to 2018 he served as Editor-at-Large for The Kenyon Review.

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