POETRY FRIDAY

 

Host Irene at Live Your Poem challenges us with a theme today - MISSING. Of course, I chose my contribution before knowing this, but certainly the work of both poet Philip Booth and artist Andrew Wyeth are missed! Does this count?

After spending a sparkling day on the Maine coast yesterday, I found "A Choice of Horizons" by Maine poet, Philip Booth in Maine Lines, edited by Richard Aldridge, Lippincott, 1970. 

My day was awash in Booth’s “naked ridgepoles, salt-bleached shakes, and “the sea, the sea, the sea,” a choice of horizons, indeed! The day ended with a visit to the Wyeth exhibits at the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland. It’s a joy to read this poem after dwelling awhile with Andrew Wyeth’s paintings. I can “see” paintings like “Christina’s World” and others through Booth’s words and marvel at how he makes us look at that one boy out-pedaling the wind on his bike "to shelter  behind some town the man he must be."

Booth, a New Hampshire native, studied with Robert Frost at Dartmouth and spent his childhood on the coast of Maine. “A Choice of Horizons” was first published in 1964 just when “Christina’s World” brought the world’s attention to Andrew Wyeth.

This poem is MISSING online. Quoting a section wouldn’t capture its beauty. Here’s a jpg from my copy of Maine Lines.

"A Choice of Horizons" by Philip Booth

 

 

 

Click on over to the Roundup at Live Your Poem to see if anything else is Missing or maybe FOUND!