TWO OHIO-BORN POETS
and THEIR POEMS
David Wagoner and Grace Butcher
We will listen to David Wagoner's poem,
"The Ends of My Fingers," a narrative poem about his accident when he was three. Three of his fingers got cut off. The doctor sewed them on and told the young David
...not to look
inside or try to find out
what color they might be.
He said he'd open them
like a present with his fingers
next week when I was three.
What do you think happened? Look at the photo I found of David Wagoner when he was five, on Lake Turkeyfoot with his father. What do you see?
Next we will hear Grace Butcher's poem "The Farm When I was Five." It ends:
"I didn't waste it, Grandma.
There is this poem."
Here is Grace Butcher with her horse. She has been a champion runner, a motorcycle rider, and a horse rider and always a beloved poet.
Assignment:
Write a prose poem about something that happened to you when you were little. End it with a mystery or a quote.
(An aside: like the Gish sisters and David Wagoner, my dad, Russ Kendig, went to school in Massillon, and his sister raised horses here. This is a picture of him at age 17 on the horse named Pedro:)
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