Published Poems, Press, and Practice Poems.

Poems on this page often move between draft and published. You’ll see a book cover when a poem is published and part of a print collection. When poems are removed, they go to my workshop with other draft poems to be posted on this site later, or it is in the workshop to be published in my next collection. Posting poems on this site helps me view them in a new light. Generally, poems move through significant revision (though folks who write poetry often never tell you as such) to reach their potential. In a way, it’s like a different music set list for my inspirational occasions. 

Press Release - Only You Can Say: New and Selected Poems. Available Now.
Guy Craig Guy Craig

Press Release - Only You Can Say: New and Selected Poems. Available Now.

This unreleased press release was generated for submission to an Oregon newspaper. Guy Craig is listing it here instead. Full disclosure: it is a cheap promotion with automated, purchased words to showcase some of his poem’s personas’ idle pathos and quixotic deeds. But mostly, it is to help Guy Craig sell his authentic, heartfelt PNW poetry books. He writes poems, not press releases.

News Release: Guy Craig Unveils Only You Can Say: New and Selected Poems

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In This Moment
Guy Craig Guy Craig

In This Moment

It’s not like you’ve only been writing poems. You’ve had to write

many essays, emails, texts, tweets, and letters to others over the years.

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Poem A
Guy Craig Guy Craig

Poem A

What a bother, right? You

Put all of your effort into a

Poem and nobody reads it.

(+ Audio File)

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Poem B
Guy Craig Guy Craig

Poem B

What’s the equivalent of a gym rat

In poetry? Each night, your last book

Before bed is often on how to work out

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Seekers of Power
Guy Craig Guy Craig

Seekers of Power

Under the weight of a shoe,

old ash is underfoot.

It is coal black and exhausted.

In the distance, direct flames

(+ Audio File)

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The News: An Elegy
Guy Craig Guy Craig

The News: An Elegy

Have you heard? All the news

is broken. All the new colors are burnt

shades of yellow from newspapers in disarray.

Anything made or powered by the politics of politeness

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In the Wilderness
Guy Craig Guy Craig

In the Wilderness

bottles of hard cider in the afternoon sun swing orange

streams of light on the hinges of our family reunion and potluck

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Trail Between Dreams
Guy Craig Guy Craig

Trail Between Dreams

I’ll follow shaded, Western redcedar spices in the air and get caught

by a fixed-weight, summer-hammock-woven-memories leader,

(+ Audio File)

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Body of Water
Guy Craig Guy Craig

Body of Water

Shaded, burnt trees and grey grass marked off

black buzzards of different sizes. I turned my back

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Recipes of Coos River
Guy Craig Guy Craig

Recipes of Coos River

I saw the river current of your life run up a creek

and chase the greeting call of a hummingbird.

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Eyes Closed, I Dream
Guy Craig Guy Craig

Eyes Closed, I Dream

City crowds can move smoothly as threads through silk.

Buildings rise to heights even light dares to tread. Ask the dead.

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Silt and Mud
Guy Craig Guy Craig

Silt and Mud

Time is a log raft behind a smoking face.

It is a sight around the corner of a river

on a slip-and-fall summer day.

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Turning the Gravel
Guy Craig Guy Craig

Turning the Gravel

You drove down the driveway,

the tires turning the gravel.

Your heart is scraps of lumber,

splitting mauls, and chicken wire.

(+ Audio File)

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Erode the Sky
Guy Craig Guy Craig

Erode the Sky

I infuse dreams in the land.

They become real when they leave my lungs.

The air becomes more like me.

I become more like dust.

(+ Audio File)

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Walking Away
Guy Craig Guy Craig

Walking Away

“Don’t fall in love with the land,” he told my father,

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Little Blue Door
Guy Craig Guy Craig

Little Blue Door

There you go again out the front door.

The one you once called your own.

The little blue door on a little winding road

that welcomed you home. Until this morning,

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Only You Can Say
Guy Craig Guy Craig

Only You Can Say

You said the word “no” for the first time today.

You turned down one more sip of milk.

A sentiment you shared without words before in so many wordless ways—

(+ Audio File)

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On the River We Float II
Guy Craig Guy Craig

On the River We Float II

The river we float has a pace

beyond the town’s prepared embrace,

as our untempered souls regale in

the submerged acknowledgments as life

(+ Audio File)

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