Welcome back to the Daily Poem here in the Close Reeds Podcast Network. I'm David Kern.

Before I get into today's poem, I want to remind you that tomorrow is the deadline for our

competition, our recitation competition for our younger listeners. So don't forget to post your

recitation on social media of eight lines of J.R. Tolkien's

poetry, at least eight lines. Remember to post that with the hashtag Daily Poem or Daily Poem podcast.

Tomorrow we will choose a couple of winners based on the different age groups, and we will

notify those winners. And then shortly thereafter, we will share the winning recitations

with you here on the show.

All right, here is today's poem.

It is by James Shiler, who lived from 1923 to 1991.

He was an American poet who won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1980 for his collection,

The Morning of the Poem.

Today's poem is called February 13, 1975. This is how it goes.

Tomorrow is St. Valentine's. Tomorrow I'll think about that. Always nervous, even after a good

sleep I'd like to climb back into. The sun shines on yesterday's new fallen snow,

and yester even it turned the world to pink and rose and steel blue buildings. Helene is restless, leaving soon, and what then will I do with myself?

Someone is watching morning TV. I'm not reduced to that yet. I wish one could press snowflakes in a book like flowers. So this is a poet that I'm not reduced to that yet. I wish one could press snowflakes in a book like flowers.

So this is a poet that I'm not terribly familiar with, but I do know that he was a central figure

in the New York school he was associated with, and I believe he even roomed with poets like

John Ashbury and Frank O'Hara, who were certainly two of the key American poets of the mid-century.

And the New York school, throughout the various arts that they were engaged with,

became a little bit known for being on the avant-garde side of things,

...