Stephanie Pruitt is a poet and teaching artist with community-based organizations including Youth Speaks Nashville and the Magdalene House. A Cave Canem Fellow and member of the Affrilachian Poets, Pruitt received the 2010 Academy of American Poets Prize, the 2009 Sedberry Prize, was a finalist for Poets and Writers’ Magazine‘s Maureen Egen Award, and was named one of “Forty Favorite Poets” by Essence magazine in honor of its fortieth anniversary. This week she will receive her Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from Vanderbilt University. Pruitt lives with her family in Nashville.
READ Chapter 16‘s profile of Stephanie Pruitt, “Looking Forward to a Life in Poetry.”
What the Birds Know
Not a single crow has weighted
my clothesline in four days. No droppings
on white sheets or feathers to pick
from the stockings I hang between them.
They made letters and shapes in the sky.
The leaves turn and fall. Winds bow
my head and pull me inward while they move
towards some unseen urge. What V words
do I know? Which arrows might I follow?
Copyright (c) 2010 by Stephanie Pruitt. All rights reserved.
Tagged: Poetry
