ABOUT INGRID WENDT

Ingrid Wendt, whose parents were each raised in German-speaking families in Valpariaso, Chile, and on a farm in southwest Michigan, spent the year 1994-1995 as a Senior Fulbright Professor in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. She has won the Oregon Book Award in Poetry with Singing the Mozart Requiem, the Carolyn Kizer award from Calapooya Collage, and the D.H. Lawrence Award. Her other books include Moving the House (poetry); From Here We Speak: An Anthology of Oregon Poetry; In Her Own Image: Women Working in the Arts; and Starting With Little Things: A Guide to Writing Poetry in the Classroom. She conducts poetry workshops and residencies in public schools and universities throughout the western United States, most recently with the faculty of the MFA program at Antioch University, Los Angeles. She lives in Eugene, Oregon, with her husband, poet and writer Ralph Salisbury.

2.

But this is what comes of book learning, not every day stretching
the tongue: discipline, discipline, flash cards, syllables
splashing in and out of the ear

out of context: out of their forests
of kelp: circling, circling, whole
words unbidden as fragments of tunes

Denkbar, I hear, and it’s one of those reef fish floating up
to my face mask, right out of my fish classification book
but right then the name won’t come, I have to look it up

Ergebnis, I hear, (outcome/result)
Abgeschiedenheit (solitude): listen
what am I telling myself, and in whose voice?

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