Friday Night Poetry

Not as well known as he should have been, David Ignatow was a very fine American poet, born in Brooklyn in 1914 and a hardworking New Yorker who had a number of jobs before ending up in teaching. The following poem has always been one of my favorites; I come from a very different background and yet the poem reached me many years ago with its clear transparency.


The Bagel


I stopped to pick up the bagel
rolling away in the wind,
annoyed with myself
for having dropped it
as it were a portent.
Faster and faster it rolled,
with me running after it
bent low, gritting my teeth,
and I found myself doubled over
and rolling down the street
head over heels, one complete somersault
afer another like a bagel
and strangely happy with myself.


—David Ignatow