John Bargowski
Photo by Joyce Bargowski
Bio
John Bargowski was born and raised in Jersey City and now lives with his family on a small acreage along the Delaware River in the Skylands of northwestern New Jersey. He is the recipient of a New Jersey State Council on the Arts Distinguished Artist Fellowship, The Rose Lefcowitz Prize from Poet Lore, and the Theodore Roethke Prize from Poetry Northwest. His work has been published in Poetry, Gettysburg Review, Poet Lore, Southern Poetry Review, Poetry East, Prairie Schooner, & Journal of New Jersey Poets, among others.
Author's Statement
I am very grateful to be included among the gifted writers who have been awarded an NEA Fellowship. To receive this vote of confidence from the distinguished panelists who believe in the promise of my work is energizing and uplifting. Being selected by my fellow writers for an NEA Fellowship is certainly an honor. My hope is to make the most of the time and financial breathing room the fellowship will provide me to hone my craft and further my writing toward realizing the promise the panel sees in my work.
Culling
I thought his homers
would never return
when he climbed to the loft
after supper to snap
the necks of the cripples
unable to join the flock
for their daily stretch,
his prize birds' tight circles
above the D&J Bar
widening out over
the county courthouse
and St. Joseph's Home
for the Blind
while he crushed
the two white eggs
from the accidental pairing
of a city champion
with a handsome blue-check
who'd wandered in
for some fresh water
and dried peas,
a sudden fluttering
and twitching
in the burlap sack
he'd knotted
and carried down the ladder
as the yellowed nail
of an old favorite
poked through
the weave of the fabric.