“Silencers Now Legal for Hunting”
Charlotte (NC) Observer, August 1, 2013
The task of the poet is “interrogation of silence.”
—George McKay Brown
And so, Silence, what is it you’re hiding
under that sleek and cunning gown?
The gun wears you and you stifle its message.
You do it smugly, Silence, sotto voce.
Still, we know the gun will not be silent—
not until it rusts or jams forever,
not until it drowns in the river or melts
into rake tines for the season.
Are you ready to be stifled, Silence?
Silence wounds. Silence? Can you hear us?
Anne Harding Woodworth is the author of six books of poetry and four chapbooks. Her most recent chapbook is The Last Gun, an excerpt of which won the COG Poetry Award, judged by A. Van Jordan. It has subsequently been animated and can be seen at http://www.cogzine.com/watch. Harding Woodworth’s poetry, essays, and reviews appear in the U.S. and abroad in print and on line, such as in Poet Lore, TriQuarterly, Crannog, and Innisfree Poetry Journal. She lives in Washington, D.C. where she is a member of the Poetry Board at the Folger Shakespeare Library.
Photograph by GMan552.
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