"Old Woman With a Goiter"
Click here to listen to Erica Levy McAlpine read this poem.
Just as in a field a herd of cows will lean and clang their copper cauldrons like the rain, with dawn breaking pink upon their bangles, and stand there blotched, humbled and hindered by their own sound, and crumple their knees, dumbstruck, while every jerk of their backs and involuntary gesture registers the ringing of a bell, so this old woman stood behind a mountain spruce, struck by something in the field, a row of phlox or patch of bluebell, holding her spray of yellow gentians, while that great ball shifted on her neck, ripe as a stitch of loganberry.
Erica Levy McAlpine is a Ph.D. candidate in English at Yale University.
For Slate's poetry submission guidelines, click spacerhereyeshyperlinkPoetry SubmissionsSlate reads new poems from Oct. 1 to April 30. Manuscripts sent between May 1 and Sept. 30 will not be considered.To submit poems: Send, as a single attached document, up to three poems of no more than 50 lines each to editors@slatepoems.com. Use the poet's name for the subject line of the e-mail and for the title of the attachment. We prefer Word documents (.doc or .docx) to PDFs.Please include a brief, professional cover letter, including publication history, in the body of your email. Please limit submissions to one per poet per annual reading period. Simultaneous submissions are OK. Slate no longer accepts poetry submissions by mail. The email address editors@slatepoems.com is for poetry submissions only (or to notify editors of acceptance elsewhere of a poem under consideration at Slate). Other inquiries, etc., will not be addressed.10000false220061444537PMWednesdayJanJanuary161/4/2006 9:45:37 PM63271989937000000020061444537PMWednesdayJanJanuary161/4/2006 9:45:37 PM632719899370000000.Clickhere to visit Robert Pinsky's Favorite Poem Project site.Click here for an archive of "Poet's Choice" columns from the Washington Post.