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ANNE MORIN'S
FOUND POEMS TO CELEBRATE
10 OF HER HORSE-LOVING DAUGHTER'S BIRTHDAYS!
Nico Wind and Carrie
Anne Morin (Nico Wind's Mother)
Ever wished you had
the time and inclination to find a kazillion horse poems by known and not-yet-discovered poets? More than ten years
ago, I began collecting horse poems as a birthday gift for my daughter, Nico Wind. By 2001, I had collected
41 poems and put them, with graphics I found on the web, in a notebook. She loved this gift more, she said, than any
other I'd given her, so I decided to attempt to find 42 more poems for 2002; 43 more for 2003; 44 more for 2004;
45 more for 2005; 46 more for 2006, 47 more for 2007, 48 more for 2008, 49 more
for 2009, 50 more for 2010, and, finally, 51 more for 2011 - which I have presented to her on each of those birthdays
in March. This means, not that we're counting, that we have a tad more than 500 poems for Nico Wind!
Sadly, Carrie Boo passed this year (2012), and so it is appropriate that I will collect no more horse poems, for her
loss to Nico has been huge, of course, and it is time to move on now to other tasks.
The titles, poets
(and lyricists*, for I have included some lyrics to horse songs and counted them as poetry) and publishing information
I've been able to find for each poem are listed here. (Note that this is still work in progress, as you can plainly
see.) If you'd like a copy of a particular poem, send me e-mail, and I'll send you a copy of the poem. I don't
like to break copyright rules, and so only a few of the poems appear in their entirety here. On
the other hand, those titles that are underlined may connect to a link that has the poem and other information about
the poet.
One favorite poem
for each of the pages (years) is displayed with an added graphic. Enjoy!
New Note! Judith Barrington's poems about
horses appear often in this list of horse poems for Nico Wind. Her poems resonated with both Nico and me, and when I had an
opportunity to say so, Judith's response was to send this poem as a gift. Here it is, with my sincere thanks and admiration
for an Oregon poet who speaks so eloquently, about horses and other most important ideas!
“DOMESTIC TERRORIST”
I trust them to run from me, necks arched in a full
swan’s S—wild ones destined for dog-food
cans,
crammed together, nipping, humping up half-bucks,
too tightly packed to let fly with unshod hoofs.
I trust them to flee the corral on moonless nights
when I slide back the poles and whisper to them and
wait:
the nearest spill out sideways, startled
to find the fence of their compound breached;
then muffled snorts and messages on the breath
huff through the tangled mass of horseflesh,
ears come forward, mud-caked heads lift high:
duns and grays, skewbalds and bays, mares
with tottering foals, a sway-backed roan,
surge like a tide and funnel through the strait,
bursting a couple of spans each side of the gap.
I trust them to scent the fragrant pastures of home.
Note: First line taken
from Maxine Kumin’s poem: “Credo” (Looking for Luck, Norton, 1992)
c. Judith Barrington
2011
(Music heard on this homepage is by Nico Wind, singing her song, "Destiny's Spell" and
playing her guitar.)
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