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First Words
Joyce Sutphen grew up on a working dairy farm, and her poems recover this lost world, with all its beauty and order. This collection traces a shift in the rural landscape from horses to tractors, from haystacks to hay bales—and watches as time ages and changes the people who make up the story. First Words is both elegy and celebration—ultimately its center is family, then and now.
- GenresPoetry
112 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
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About the author
Joyce Sutphen
19 books30 followersJoyce Sutphen (born 1949) is an American poet, currently serving as Minnesota's Poet Laureate. She is the state's second laureate, appointed by Governor Mark Dayton in August, 2011. Sutphen also serves as a professor of English at Gustavus Adolphus College in Saint Peter, Minnesota.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 22, 2021
In Vermeer’s Painting
(For Alicia)
In Vermeer’s painting she turns
towards us, her head wrapped
in a blue and gold silk turban.
I know those eyes, the nose,
even the lips, parted with her
tongue light on the teeth,
the faint eyebrows, the shadow
and slope of the cheek, the chin.
Of course I’m amazed: what is
my daughter, now standing beside me,
doing in seventeenth century Holland?
von Zutphen, I presume?
She looks pensive, as if the
pearl, floating above her robe
and collar, was indeed the pearl
of wisdom, but I know that
she is thinking about the future
when she will be born in
Lindbergh’s town and how someday
she will dance on the moon.
She sees the centuries of pearl
the slow layering of generation
until this particular luster is
reached and stands now
in the museum, tilting her head
(first this way and then that)
to see what she’s become:
in Vermeer’s painting she turns.
(For Alicia)
In Vermeer’s painting she turns
towards us, her head wrapped
in a blue and gold silk turban.
I know those eyes, the nose,
even the lips, parted with her
tongue light on the teeth,
the faint eyebrows, the shadow
and slope of the cheek, the chin.
Of course I’m amazed: what is
my daughter, now standing beside me,
doing in seventeenth century Holland?
von Zutphen, I presume?
She looks pensive, as if the
pearl, floating above her robe
and collar, was indeed the pearl
of wisdom, but I know that
she is thinking about the future
when she will be born in
Lindbergh’s town and how someday
she will dance on the moon.
She sees the centuries of pearl
the slow layering of generation
until this particular luster is
reached and stands now
in the museum, tilting her head
(first this way and then that)
to see what she’s become:
in Vermeer’s painting she turns.
January 2, 2017
Beautiful, lyrical, accessible, humorous, serious. Joyce Sutphen captures a life on the farm and beyond in transporting and thoughtful lines of verse. There are many poems here worth pausing for, savoring. She reminds me a bit of Faith Shearin and George Bilgere, some of my favorite poets. A few poems I will use as mentor texts in my high school creative writing classroom.
Cream of the crop:
In the Family
All the Colors
The Body I Once Lived In
My Luck
On the 4th of July
Grounded
The First Child
November, 1967
In the Photo Booth
Cream of the crop:
In the Family
All the Colors
The Body I Once Lived In
My Luck
On the 4th of July
Grounded
The First Child
November, 1967
In the Photo Booth
September 11, 2018
Quite possibly one of the most beautiful poetry collection I have ever read.
December 27, 2015
Went to Joyce Sutphen's (MN Poet Laureate) reading at Royalton Public Library last night. Very enjoyable and bought First Words from her which I had somehow missed. I was very glad to hear her read and see the poems in this book go back to her heart-center; home, farm, family. The last book of poems was pretty esoteric and academic and lacked the visualacuity and emotional heft of these lovely poems.
December 20, 2020
Writing any insightful review for poetry is tricky: more so when so many of these Sutphen poems are dead stop arresting,while the remainder are intriguing.
Yet, If you didn’t grow up in the Midwest or, better yet, on a farm,a number of these poems might not resonate.
I didn’t, but grew up next to farms and surrounded by some of the best farming ground in North America: the red river valley.
Her poem to the hard working father she had is a real gem.
Yet, If you didn’t grow up in the Midwest or, better yet, on a farm,a number of these poems might not resonate.
I didn’t, but grew up next to farms and surrounded by some of the best farming ground in North America: the red river valley.
Her poem to the hard working father she had is a real gem.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews