Jennifer Grotz

Jennifer Grotz Poems

Jennifer Grotz Biography

Jennifer Grotz (born 1971) is an American poet and translator who teaches English and creative writing at the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers and at the University of Rochester, where she is Associate Professor. She is also a Contributing Editor for Born Magazine and the Assistant Director of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. Grotz grew up in small Texas towns but has lived in France and Poland, all of which inform her poems. Grotz holds degrees from Tulane University (BA), Indiana University (MA and MFA), and the University of Houston (PhD). She also studied Literature at the University of Paris (La Sorbonne), where she discovered her interest in translating French Poetry. Her poems, translations, and reviews have appeared in many literary journals and magazines, and her work has been included in Best American Poetry. She currently lives in Rochester, NY, but spends part of her year in France and Poland.)

The Best Poem Of Jennifer Grotz

The Needle

"When your eyes have done their part,
Thought must length it in the heart."
—Samuel Daniel


. . . Thought lengths it, pulls
an invisible world through
a needle's eye
one detail at a time,

beginning with
the glint of blond down
on his knuckle as he
crushed a spent cigarette—

I can see that last strand of smoke
escaping in a tiny gasp—above the table where
a bee fed thoughtfully
from a bowl of sugar.

World of shadows! where
his thumb lodged into
the belly of an apple,
then split it in two,

releasing the scent that exists
only in late summer's apples
as we bit into
rough halves flooded with juice.

Memory meticulously stitches
the market square
where stalls of fruit
ripened in the heat.

Stitches the shadows stretched and
pulled across the ground by
the crowds pigeons
seemed to mimic

in their self-important
but not quite purposeful
strutting,
singly and in droves.

Stitches the unraveling
world where
only vendors and policemen
stood in place.

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