What Light: This Week’s Poem: Mike Finley
"Hamsters" by Mike Finley was selected as this week's What Light poem by Duluth's Poet Laureate, Jim Johnson.
Hamsters
Several times I have opened an eye at night
certain someone was moving in the house,
but it was only the chrome wheel turning
Or we would be making love and hear the sound
of metal on metal from the children’s room
the ball in the drip bottle pushed and released.
The crunch of seed between pointed pearls,
the scurry and blink of prisoners.
In the cane, in the damp, in the moldy dark, they spin.
Poetics
I try to think of a poem as a gift. This means it needs to be something someone would want to get. I also take pains, as I get older, not to lay claim to things that aren’t minenot to steal stories, or pretend I have felt or experienced things I have not. I like humor, even in very serious writingthe willingness to look at things in a surprising way. Finally, I try to write for folks who do not read too many poems. Because a world that is all poem is like a hothouse, when what we need is fresh air and light.
Biography
Mike Finley is author of over forty three books of poems, downloadable versions of which are free on his website. He has won a Pushcart Prize and a Wisconsin State Arts Fellowship. His nonfiction book Why Teams Don’t Work was named “Best Management Book, 1995” by The Global Business Book Awards. Mike is currently finishing a memoir titled Fixing the Christians. He lives with his family in Saint Paul.
