Episode #172 A Time - Allison Adelle Hedge Coke

Close Talking: A Poetry Podcast

Connor and Jack have a time talking about the poem "A Time" by Allison Adelle Hedge Coke. She is a multi-award winning poet whose latest book-length poem "Look at This Blue" is on the short list for the 2022 National Book Award. Come for the poetry analysis, stay for the discussion of red wolves, climate crisis, Tolkein, impermanence, and diectic words. You can read the poem, here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/89060/a-time-570d716c13a77 A Time By: Allison Adelle Hedge Coke The problem— it’s not been written yet, the omens: the headless owl, the bobcat struck, the red wolf where she could not be. None of it done and yet it’s over. Nothing yet of night when she called me closer asked me to bring her crow painting to stay straight across from her feet so she could waken into it, remember her friend. Of Old Chief alongside her shoulder still watching over her just as the mountain had done throughout her Alberta childhood. The Pendleton shroud bearing our braids, her figure in flaming pyre. The cards, the notes, the tasks the things undone, not done and she with us faraway as this has always been and ever will continue. We meet we leave we meld and vaporize from whatever it was that held us human in this life. And all the beautiful things that lead our thoughts and give us reason remain despite the leaving and all I know is what you know when it is over said and done it was a time and there was never enough of it. Check out episodes of Close Talking on YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCCCSpjZcN1hIsG4aDrT3ouw Find us on Facebook at: facebook.com/closetalking Find us on Twitter at: twitter.com/closetalking Find us on Instagram: @closetalkingpoetry Find us on YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCCCSpjZcN1hIsG4aDrT3ouw You can always send us an email with thoughts on this or any of our previous podcasts, as well as suggestions for future shows, at [e-mail].