‘Bucket of bad sleep’

“A bucket of fish,’’ Mats Hagwall

“I let down my long line; it went falling; I pulled; up came
A bucket of bad sleep in which tongues were sloshing about
Like frogs and dark fish, breaking the surface of silence….’’

— From “The Angler’s Story,’’ by American poet and Yale Prof. John Hollander (1929-2013). He lived in Woodbridge, Conn.

Here the whole poem.

In Woodbridge, the Darling House Museum, built in 1774

— Photo by Jerry Dougherty

'Levity and crime'

“Now at the turn of the year this coil of clay
Bites its own tail: a New Year starts to choke
On the old one's ragged end. I bite my tongue
As the end of me--of my rope of stuff and nonsense
(The nonsense held, it was the stuff that broke),
Of bones and light, of levity and crime,
Of reddish clay and hope--still bides its time.’’

— From “The Mad Potter,’’ by John Hollander (1929-2013), a celebrated poet, critic and Yale professor. He served as Connecticut’s poet laureate. He lived in Woodbrige.

Below Wepawaug Falls, in Woodbridge