Linda Gregg

cantfindit

Born in Suffern, New York, on September 9, 1942, Linda Gregg grew up in Marin County, California. She received her BA and MA from San Francisco State University. Her first book of poems, Too Bright to See, was published by Graywolf Press in 1981. She went on to publish several collections of poetry, including All of It Singing: New and Selected Poems (Graywolf Press, 2008), the 2009 recipient of the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize and winner of the Poetry Society of America’s William Carlos Williams Award; In the Middle Distance (Graywolf Press, 2006); Things and Flesh (Graywolf Press, 1999); and Alma (Random House, 1985). Gregg's honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Foundation Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a Whiting Writer's Award, as well as multiple Pushcart Prizes. She was the 2003 winner of the Sara Teasdale Award and the 2006 PEN/Voelcker Award winner for Poetry. She taught at the University of Iowa, Columbia University, the University of California at Berkeley, and Princeton University. She died on March 20, 2019. Source

Part of Me Wanting Everything to Live

This New England kind of love reminds me

of the potted chrysanthemum my husband

gave me. I cared for it faithfully,

turning the pot a quarter turn each day

as it sat by the window. Until the blossoms

hung with broken necks on the dry stems.

Cut off the dead parts and watched

green leaves begin, new buds open.

Thinking the chrysanthemum would not die

unless I forced it to. The new flowers

were smaller and smaller, resembling

little eyes awake and alone in the dark.

I was offended by the lessening,

by the cheap renewal. By a going on

that gradually left the important behind.

But now it's different. I want the large

and near, and endings more final. If it must

be winter, let it be absolutely winter.

Published:

1986

Length:

Regular

Literary Movements:

Contemporary

Anthology Years:

2024

Themes:

Love & Relationships

Nature

Science & Climate

Literary Devices:

Extended Metaphor

a metaphor that extends through several lines or even an entire poem