The Poetry Box
Artist: John Frechette
Curated by: Matt Daly, Director of Jackson Hole Writers
Location: East Broadway in front of Persephone Bakery
Date: 2010
Medium: Wood, glass, pipe
Partners: Jackson Hole Public Art and the Jackson Hole Writers
Sponsored by: MADE and Mountain Dandy
The Poetry Box, founded in 2010 and now curated by local poet and Director of Jackson Hole Writers Matt Daly, is a collaborative project funded by Jackson Hole Public Art and Jackson Hole Writers. Poetry can be found anywhere, a creed manifested in this freestanding depot stocked with free poetry, sourced monthly from regional poets.
The Poetry Box places poetry into the hands of passersby by enticing them with its whimsical design – created in 2010 by local artist John Frechette – to reach into the box and take a free poem with them as they go about their daily business.
Submit your poetry (15 lines or less, please) to be featured in The Poetry Box by emailing Matt Daly and follow along virtually via Instagram (@jhpoetrybox) and Facebook, where the poems are also featured, often along with the authors themselves. For the online version of The Poetry Box, Matt also welcomes inquiries about contributions from artists and photographers.
The Poetry Box was the brainchild of arts writer and advocate Meg Daly (indeed the sister of current curator Matt Daly) and was implemented as a collaborative project between Jackson Hole Public Art, Teton County Library, the Jackson Hole Review and the Jackson Hole Writers Conference.
Annual support from MADE and Mountain Dandy.
Evidence of Water
I walk the upstream line of water stain,
tattooed on rock, in the empty wash.
The stream bed widens, opens its mouth to speak,
knowing someone's here who listens.
A whispered song where river once flowed
splashing notes on banks of larkspur blooms.
If I follow this line long enough will I reach its Source?
-Christine Stevens
NOVEMBER 2024
Habit
The coffee has been leavened.
Milk and cream to lighten
dark Columbian brown
in a way, that is not mine.
But some cups are
particularly
bitter black and belie.
the usual way
we walk down
worn tracks, one foot
almost on top of the other.
- Will Broeder
OCTOBER 2024
Yellowstone Wild
A lone coyote
Sojourns across the
Pristine snow, drifting
Like grains of sand
Rippling water,
Making steady headway
Toward a narrow creek
As a wolf song
Echoes across the valley.
Enduring howls
Ricocheting
Through pine-covered hills
Followed by a long silence-
Reveals
A single wolf.
-Teresa Griswold
OCTOBER 2024
The Life of Splat
“Not now'' hits me. like a gong
with every see-through window I run into,
every voice that doesn't sound right,
inside and out.
Yet, I hold onto "keep going" momentum,
captured by the power of infinite “right now" choruses ...
echoes in my head of “You give up your right if you don't meet this
deadline",
pressing me against terms like a bug in a book,
with guts spilling out silent screams.
“I have given up my life, not just my right",
to this pumping, pushing force that says "right now".
I am trapped by its siren calls,
with no reverse wind to pull me back.
In the life of splat,
when will “not now" ever be enough.
- Margo Caslavka
SEPTEMBER 2024
Captured
I wait patiently for that perfect instance,
That nano second, when time stands still,
Capturing a frame by stubborn persistence,
Sometimes the process, a battle of will.
Maybe a humming bird with buzzing wings,
Or graceful landing of a flamboyant drake,
A honeybee on a sweet nectar fling,
Or mountains mirrored on a placid lake.
A fox leaps in the air, after her prey,
Stranded in space, awaiting the applause,
Swallows dart about, in an acrobatic ballet,
A bear with a trout dangling from it's jaws.
Through my lens, a moment comes to life,
Forever captured, in color or black and white.
- Craig Youngblood
SEPTEMBER 2024
A summer night's front porch performance
The house lights dim
behind the horizon
and I take my seat
in the mezzanine folding chair.
The nightly show:
Cicadas
and Spring Peepers and
the soft breeze that plays
Magnolia leaves.
- Reed Mattison
AUGUST 2024
Potomac
Last week I sat at your shore
And thought you had drowned
The trees on your banks
I was saddened to think
Your waters would carry such sorrow
But today, I realized I was mistaken
And those branches I lamented
Have grown to trees with your recession
New leaflets adorn their outstretched arms
Announcing 'I have survived'
Even those trees whose entirety
Was submerged just last week
Have tiny buds of life
Reaching upwards to the sun
Tenacious and strong
- Raena Parsons
AUGUST 2024
River Mind
You are free to flow.
To follow the land's body as it flattens and slows, to splash as you dive over slopes of ground.
Your seasons form cut-banks and sandbars where trees lie skinned to the bone,
victims of the run-off Spring.
My mind, knows this back and forth, ebb and flow, and too has found eddies
where water stills in a holding place.
Where meadows of rose scent each breath
and colonies of nymphs wait on river stones,
to be born into flight.
- Christine Stevens
JULY 2024
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Tanager
A flash of red yellow black
crosses my window. Gladness
lightens my heart where gloom
had reigned, this tanager the poem
I could not write.
- Stephen Lottridge
JULY 2024
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Crazed Circle of Delirium
Right now it seems,
blinded by a fear
introduced by suggestion,
the masses of people
inhabiting life
are running in circles
wearing a blindfold
obscuring their vision of calmness. They are spinning
in a vast circle of insanity unaware of a reality
taking place beyond the boundaries of this crazed halo
of hysteric delirium.
- Dan Abernathy ( dbA)
JUNE/JULY 2024
#14
Have you ever stared at a barren tree in the winter
and wondered if it would ever bloom again?
I have. May I send note on sparrow wings to
Tell you of this coming spring?
I have seen it before. The blossoms.
I have seen the buds poke out and I wish.
I wish them into existence. I wish them to be beautiful. Like you. I see them and send love on fairy dust to them. To grow and be happy and strong and everlasting.
Now. Can I ask for the same. For this tree to become anew. And have others send prayers on the wind my way?
- Lyf 'n Ink
MAY/JUNE 2024
The Language of Snow
Snowflakes and flurries fall in patterns of wind forming crystals on powder banks.
Diamond dust glitters in sun-lit skies.
And hoar frost decorates willows by river beds.
Sleet and slop is the wetness of snow.
As moisture and wind sing together
in a duet of changing form
as temperatures rise and fall.
I name it adagio snow, as it slowly falls.
Hold a single flake that melts on my palm.
Each moist kiss of snow on my face,
A reflection of the One, in many names, many forms.
- Christine Stevens
MARCH 2024
Bane
Seemingly calm and serene
In a warm summer breeze
A field of lush lavender
Twas always the cure
Wild flowers don't heal the pangs
Feel the bite of her wolfs fangs
-Lyf 'n Ink
FEBRUARY 2024
Untitled
Your stubble is seared into my right cheekbone, sweat sparkling on raw skin; you are mostly careful not to
hurt me and I mostly say I do not want to be hurt, and still:
I turn each drop of pain over and over in my palm
a fistful of fierce animal beauty
- Liz Rafert
FEBRUARY 2024
Paging Dr. Freud
As far back as I can remember,
In her presence I felt unsafe.
I was at a loss as to how to be right.
How I spoke, how I acted, how I looked ...
In her eyes, all of me was wrong.
She accused me of hiding the inedible overcooked peas. She dismissed me; labeled me a liar.
I was five.
I asked her if she'd ever lied to me.
"No." She said.
I knew it was a lie.
- Gail Rowlee
JANUARY 2024