A Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets since 2003, Frank Bidart has been teaching at Wellesley College since 1972. He has been honored with many award throughout his life, the most recent being the Bollingen Prize in American Poetry last year.

Here is a poem of his that looks at the process of writing poetry:

The Old Man at the Wheel

Measured against the immeasurable
universe, no word you have spoken

brought light. Brought
light to what, as a child, you thought

too dark to be survived. By exorcism
you survived. By submission, then making.

You let all the parts of that thing you would
cut out of you enter your poem because

enacting there all its parts allowed you
the illusion you could cut it from your soul.

Dilemmas of choice given what cannot
change alone roused you to words.

As you grip the things that were young when
you were young, they crumble in your hand.

Now you must drive west, which in November
means driving directly into the sun.

(Frank Bidart, from the October 2007 issue of Poetry.)

Although, alas, he does not have a website, there is a free download of an audio of this poem at the Poets.org. The download includes readings by Rita Dove, Robert Hass, Lyn Hejinian, Galway Kinnell and many others.

Tags: modern poetry