Ama Codjoe: Pick of the Week [ed. Terence Winch]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Deer

 

Walking alone in a forest, I came upon

a deer—this was not a vision.

It faced me, on its four thin legs,

unmoved as a cave painting

brushed by light. I made myself still.

I spoke to it, softly. I can’t remember

what I said. The deer regarded me as a god would,

eased by my astonishment.

Then, slowly, I moved closer, and the deer

did not run. By now, you know it was love

I walked toward, not the deer, but

what hung in the space between us. I know

it was love because, as I held

my breath, the deer took

a few steps toward me before

bounding into the camouflage

of branches and leaves.

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Ama Codjoe is the author of Bluest Nude (Milkweed Editions, 2022), finalist for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Poetry and the Paterson Poetry Prize, and Blood of the Air (Northwestern University Press, 2020), winner of the Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize. She has been awarded support from Bogliasco, Cave Canem, Robert Rauschenberg, and Saltonstall foundations as well as from Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, Hedgebrook, Yaddo, Hawthornden, MacDowell, and the Amy Clampitt Residency. Her poems have twice appeared in the Best American Poetry series. Among other honors, Codjoe has received fellowships from the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bronx Council on the Arts, the New York State Council/New York Foundation of the Arts, and the Jerome Foundation. Codjoe is the 2023 Poet-in-Residence at the Guggenheim Museum. She is the winner of a 2023 Whiting Award.  [Author photo by Jamie Harmon. “The Deer” first appeared in the New York Review of Books.]

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                                                               Neolithic cave painting in Spain's Penáguila region.

Comments

[Indran J Amirthanayagam]

Lovely and fleeting as the deer who leaps off into the bush away from the hand and the eye of the suitor.

Thanks

Indran Amirthanayagam
Co-Publisher, Beltway Editions

[Bill Nevins]

"I walked toward, not the deer, but

what hung in the space between us."
Yes! Precisely. Beautiful poem. Thank you, Ama yCodjoe and Terence.
Slainte!
Bill Nevins
Vozclara Poetry & Music Project

[Cindy Hochman]

Such beautiful lines and imagery here. There is a vivid immediacy to the poem that makes me feel like I'm there and witnessing the interaction between the poet and the deer. I love the conversational tone of it. This is a truly love poem.

[Emily Fragos]

Marvelous poem. Thank you, Ms. Codjoe.
Thank you, too, to Terence Winch for the cave painting. Is it from Altamira?

[Terence Winch]

Bill:  Thanks for the comment.

[Terence Winch]

Emily: thanks for the comment. All I know of the cave painting is what you see in the caption.

[Denise Duhamel]

Gorgeous poem! Intimacy and fear, intimacy and fear. So true.

[Eileen]

Beautiful poem. I loved it from the first word to the last word. Art work had that elusive feeling as well.

[lally]

"The deer regarded me as a god would,/eased by my astonishment." Brilliant!

[David Lehman]

Wonderful work!

[Richard Vargas]

I found myself holding my breath as I read this beautiful and calming poem. I rarely do that. Bravo.

[Grace Cavalieri]

A gentle spirit writes a gentle poem. How alike the poet is to the deer.

[Don Berger]

I love how the speaker compares the deer to a cave painting, how it looks at her in a godly way, how it isn’t a vision, and best of all, how she doesn’t remember what she said to the deer! Plenty to enjoy having in this wonderfully clear intriguing poem. Glad we saw it here!

[KC Trommer]

Wonderful poem, Ama! Amazing to capture the charged stillness between two creatures and to bring the reader into this so gracefully with “By now, you know it as love…”

[clarinda harriss]

Oh, this made my day. A day previously as unmade as the bed of an insomniac. What a profound and lovely poem. It is much more than just an idyll.

[Evie]

Those "few steps" are everything. Thanks for making more beauty from the beauty of that moment, Ama. 💜

[Moira]

And this book just won the Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets. Can't wait to get my hands on it.

https://poets.org/academy-american-poets-announces-recipients-2023-american-poets-prizes