First Poetry Friday: "Sharks' Teeth"

Teaching Creative Writing in an endlessly inspiring task. Pushing my students out of their comfort zones, and asking them to look closely at poetry to figure out how it ticks, gives me the opportunity to discover new poems and poets that I come to love.

In the past few months, I've LOVED having the opportunity to sink back into poetry and share my passion for it with my students. So now, I'm going to share some of those poems with you.

Welcome to Poetry Fridays.

I discovered Kay Ryan's award-winning book while browsing idly in Northshire Bookstore. I picked it up because I loved the cover. I bought it because I kept snapping photos of every page, entranced by the beauty in her spare language and wonderfully crafted rhythms.

"Sharks' Teeth"

by Kay Ryan

Everything contains some 

silence. Noise gets

its zest from the

small shark's-tooth

shaped fragments

of rest angled

in it. An hour 

of city holds maybe 

a minute of these 

remnants of a time 

when silence reigned, 

compact and dangerous 

as a shark. Sometimes 

a bit of a tail 

or fin can still 

be sensed in parks.

Source: Poetry (April 2004).