2 poems by featured poet Winston Derden

Our next off the page poetry series event will feature poets Winston Derden and Jonathan Moody on Wednesday, January 8 beginning at 7pm.  Open mic to follow featured readings. Refreshments provided.  

The two poems below are by poet Winston Derden. "A Gift" appeared first in Big River Poetry Review. "Medium Small" first appeared in Illya's Honey.

 

A Gift
 

My gift of poems arrived pre-read,

a book by Mary Oliver,  

paper wrapper nicked a bit,

pages curled and unrecovered. 

Not a poem was missing, though,

each page was bound in order,  

and as image, verse, and line enlightened,

I began to wonder  

if luminescence shines more bright

having first lit the eyes of another. 

— Winston Derden

Medium Small 

Today,

put one medium with another

and you don’t get media,

you get mediums. 

But

the mediums

these days are

so small. 

Cell phones

that fit the palm of your hand,

but leave you asking, “What?

What? You broke up.” 

MP3’s

that play into

ear buds with one third

the range of cheap speakers. 

Smart devices

that access

the Internet

on screens too tiny to read, 

with WIFI access

anywhere you go

to update

the latest snippet 

of nothing

large enough

to matter. 

— Winston Derden

 

Winston Derden is a former journalist, fiction writer, and poet who resides in Houston. His poetry appears in New Texas, the Texas Poetry Calendar, two Houston Poetry Festival anthologies, Words and Art, Harbinger Asylum and its first anthology, Pink-Eye Lemonade, Big River Poetry Review, Illya’s Honey and the Anthology of the Poetry Society of Texas 2012. Some of that work is collected in the chapbook “Analects.” He is a lifetime member of Gulf Coast Poets. He read on the 2013 Word Around Town tour and appears as a featured reader at Houston-area poetry readings. 

Video poems by Winston Derden:
Driving Nails and Graceful
Taking Turns Passing On