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Michael Poage (1945 - )
"Pelagic" in this title means living in open waters, referring most often to birds. With this poem, then, Poage might refer to how prairies resemble large bodies of water. However, he turns the sky, not ripples of grass, into the ocean, with the bird "swimming in the air." The counterbalance is land, or "home's street." To extend the water comparison further, he then imagines the moon also moving within an oceanic sky. He suggests the moon is love, "beauty," and mystery—all universal associations. The "small bird" and the moon both share the same fate as humans: all are "condemned" to struggle in "the open sea." Home is the familiar, and the sky is the natural world with all its powerful, uncertain forces.
PELAGIC
In the breath of a hand we saw a small bird swimming in the air. We returned to home's street.
The moon is a human back caught again in an act of passion and condemned with all its beauty and common questions to the open sea.
Education: BA, Westmont College, 1967; MFA in Creative Writing, University of Montana, 1973; Master of Divinity, San Francisco Theological Seminary, 1985.
Career: BORN, (Black Stone Press, 1975), Handbook of Ornament (Black Stone Press, 1979), The Gospel of Mary (Woodley Press, 1997), god won't overlook us, (Penthe Press, 2001), and Abundance (219 Press, 2004). He has taught at Friends University (Wichita), Wichita State University, and the University of Latvia in Riga, Latvia. Currently, he is pastor of Fairmont United Church of Christ, Congregational, in Wichita; some sermons are posted at http://www.fairmountucc.com/sermons.htm
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© 2008 Denise Low, AAPP 27 © 1997 "Pelagic," Michael Poage, from The Gospel of Mary (Woodley http://www.washburn.edu/reference/woodley-press/Reviews/mary.htm ) © 2004 Denise Low, photo
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Michael
Poage has been a Kansan since 1985, when he began serving United Church of Christ congregations in Council Grove, Lawrence and Wichita. He has advanced degrees in both theology and creative writing. While a student at the University of 