Deborah Ager

Deborah Ager Poems

Deborah Ager Biography

Deborah Ager is an American poet. Life Ager founded the poetry magazine known as 32 poems or 32 Poems Magazine in 2003 with the poet John Poch. She was educated at the University of Maryland (B.A.) and the University of Florida (M.F.A.). Her writing has appeared in New England Review, The Georgia Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, Los Angeles Review, Barn Owl, North American Review, and Best New Poets 2006. She has received fellowships and/or scholarships from the MacDowell Colony, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation. She was a Walter E. Dakin fellow at the Sewanee Writers' Conference as well as a Tennessee Williams Scholar. Her manuscript, Midnight Voices, was a semifinalist for the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize in 2007 before being accepted for publication by Cherry Grove Collections. In 2011, she edited the poetry anthology Poetry Doesn't Need You with the poet John Poch and scholar Bill Beverly. The book is forthcoming in 2012.)

The Best Poem Of Deborah Ager

The Lake

The yard half a yard,
half a lake blue as a corpse.
The lake will tell things you long to hear:
get away from here.
Three o'clock. Dry leaves rat-tat like maracas.

Whisky-colored grass
breaks at every step and trees
are slowly realizing they are nude.
How long will you stay?
For the lake asks questions you want to hear, too.

Months have passed since, well,
everything. Since buildings stood
black against sky, rain hissed from sidewalks
and curled around you.
O, how those avenues once seemed menacing!

I know what you miss
sings this lake. Car horns groaning
in rush hour. Sweet coffee. Wind
pounding like hammers. Warmth of a lover.
Crickets humming love songs to the street.

Deborah Ager Comments