The North Shore Poet’s Forum will meet Saturday, Sept. 28, at 10:30 a.m., in the Sohier Room of the Beverly Public Library. This is a bit unusual since we normally meet on the 3rd Saturday of the month, but I couldn’t make it last week, and members voted to postpone one week. You may bring food, but be discreet, as usual.

I had no great ideas for a program this month, but I do have lots of poetry magazines that I decided to give to any of you who may want them. They include Poetry, Rattle, Ploughshares, Alaska Quarterly Review (one copy….I don’t know why I have it), and The Sun. There may be more. I have too, too many. And, I thought, it might be fun to read a few and vote on whether we would have chosen to publish them. I think that would be a refreshing and heartening exercise. Oh, I also get The New Yorker, and we all know how many great poets have had work published there. I’m not that impressed with many these days, but it could be because I’m not that smart.

It’s Autumn! Today! First day! So, I’ll leave you with a Fall poem, by Robert Gibb, For the Chipmunk in My Backyard. I like this one so much, I might look up more of his poems.

For the Chipmunk in My Backyard


I think he knows I’m alive, having come down
The three steps of the back porch
And given me a good once over. All afternoon
He’s been moving back and forth,
Gathering odd bits of walnut shells and twigs,
While all about him the great fields tumble
To the blades of the thresher. He’s lucky
To be where he is, wild with all that happens.
He’s lucky he’s not one of the shadows
Living in the blond heart of the wheat.
This autumn when trees bolt, dark with the fires
Of starlight, he’ll curl among their roots,
Wanting nothing but the slow burn of matter
On which he fastens like a small, brown flame.