Steve West   Author’s Biography: I was born in Heber Springs, Arkansas, have BSE and MA degrees in English from the University of Central Arkansas, and the PhD degree in Modern British and American Literature from the University of Southern Mississippi. I taught seven years in Arkansas, three in Mississippi, and have been on the faculty of Martin Methodist since 1985. I was awarded the 2006 Fred Ford Exemplary Teacher Award.

My book of poems, Almost Home, came out on March Street Press in 2009. I have been writing and publishing poetry and prose in journals since the 1980's. My work has appeared in recent issues of Avocet, A Journal of Nature Poetry, Foliate Oak, and The Green Hills Literary Lantern. I was Writer in Residence for the Buffalo River National River in 2010 where I worked on poems related to rivers and water. I'd like to share one of these newer poems:

Contemplating Wendell Berry, Rilke, and Zen

  On the Banks of the River

            “make a place to sit down.

                Sit down. Be quiet.

                . . .

                Of the little words that come

                Out of silence. . .

                Make a poem that does not disturb

                The silence from which it came.”

                                                Wendell Berry

When a semester if finally finished,

I always sit quietly for two weeks or so.

I’ve wasted too many words, more than my share.

So I will sit

            And listen.

To wind, rain, silence.

And dread the day I must

Break this vow, return

To a classroom where I fear

I profane a million words.

            “. . .who keep innerly

                     Silent the roots of speech."

                                                Rilke

Ask me about silence

As it should be.

With only the song of birds,

Hum of bee, wind through leaves.

No chug of car or tractor, no

Slamming of doors, no

Querulous voice of humans

Or obscene rasp of cell phone

Break the silence.

A mockingbird nearby

Insists on quiet.

             “The quieter you become,

                The more you are

                Able to hear.”

                                Zen wisdom

 Here is one of the poems from Almost Home.

Another Spring Poem

There's a beacon of yellow

On the hill, a forsythia.

Its neighbor is a dogwood

Just becoming white teacups.

In my yard the crocus have gone,

Tulips have seen better days,

Daffodils dead by Easter.

It's been fifteen years

Since I planted that pecan

Where bullet-like buds now

Threaten the hyacinth.

"Old folks die in the spring."

My grandmother once said,

"The change is too much for them."

I guess she knew;

She died in March.

They raked a green layer

Of chickweed off mud to bury her.

The smell of lilac

Drifts around the corner

Of our house.