When Ted Kooser, the United States Poet Laureate recently visited Kent, one of his activities was to select his favorite poem from among those which students had written for the occasion. All of the student work was in the form of responses to Mr. Kooser’s poems. The winning poem (right), Ceramicist by Patrick Ortali ’08, was a response to Mr. Kooser’s poem, “Skater”.
As to what drew him to this particular poem, Joan Beattie, Chair of the English Department at Kent, related that Mr. Kooser “liked one very strong metaphor/image in the center of the poem.”
Ceramicist
Patrick Ortali ‘08
It doesn’t feel the same as the other clay;
the waxy smooth, stiff porcelain
is not so uncomplicated,
this child of the earth,
unwilling to be tamed.
Still it rises and falls,
transformed by its own caprice
as much as it is molded by my hands.
Slowly the gray-white clay
lifts, thins, and widens.
The ceramicist now wears
tight gloves of wet porcelain,
and the shapely mound on the wheel
takes the delicate form of a sloping bowl.
Despite its gentle curves and relative perfection
I know that when I see it next,
it will have fallen into disrepair,
the even, slender edge breaking,
recreating the bowl as a scallop,
perfectly suited to some use
yet undiscovered.
