Gary Margolis

Gary Margolis is the author of four poetry books: Raking the Winter Leaves: New and Selected Poems (Bauhan Publishing, 2013); Fire in the Orchard (Autumn House Press, 2002), which was nominated for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for poetry; Falling Awake (University of Georgia Press, 1986); and The Day We Still Stand Here (University of Georgia Press, 1983).

A Robert Frost Fellow at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and a recipient of a Vermont Council on the Arts award, Margolis has published his poems in Poetry, American Scholar, Poetry Northwest, and other literary magazines.

A licensed psychologist, Margolis is the former executive director of counseling and former associate professor of English at Middlebury College in Vermont. He lives in Cornwall, Vermont, where he is a volunteer firefighter.

For the Poet Who is Your High School English Teacher

Understand she’s standing in front of you

taking attendance with lines

in her head.

Looking for possible line breaks in her

lesson plan. Don’t think enjambment

is too big a word for you.

She doesn’t. She won’t talk down to you

and will have you look up what you don’t

understand.

Know she won’t care if you stumble

on another word instead.

In getting there. Call it the next

word in store for you.

What she found before you.

Last night. When she couldn’t sleep.

When she was thinking of how

to teach how thrilling it can be

when a word takes a breath

and you find there’s more than one

way to be in the world. Two

possibilities to imagine that doe

at the back of the room, how she

escaped the woods

to be here with you. How none

of you thought to bring a gun

to school. How your teacher believed

you could write a poem to her.

Published:

2020

Length:

Regular

Literary Movements:

Contemporary

Anthology Years:

2023

Themes:

Education & Learning