George Starbuck | Poetry Out Loud

George Starbuck was born in Columbus, Ohio. He attended the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, the University of Chicago, and Harvard University. Starbuck spent two years as a corporal in the Military Police Corps before working at various universities. Starbuck was also a contributor to numerous periodicals including The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, and Poetry magazine. He died in 1996 after a twenty-year battle with Parkinson’s disease.

More By This Poet

Fable for Blackboard

Here is the grackle, people.
Here is the fox, folks.
The grackle sits in the bracken. The fox
   hopes.

Here are the fronds, friends,
that cover the fox.
The fronds get in a frenzy. The grackle
   looks.

Here are the ticks, tykes,
that live in the leaves, loves.
The fox...

By George Starbuck

Activities
Nature

Translations from the English

Pigfoot (with Aces Under) Passes

The heat’s on the hooker.
Drop’s on the lam.
Cops got Booker.
Who give a damn?

The Kid’s been had
But not me yet.
Dad’s in his pad.
No sweat.

Margaret Are You Drug

Cool it Mag.
Sure it’s a drag
With all that green flaked out.
Next...

By George Starbuck

Arts & Sciences

Sign

Virgin, sappy, gorgeous, the right-now
Flutters its huge prosthetics at us, flung
To the spotlights, frozen in motion, center-ice.

And the first rows, shaken with an afterslice
That’s bowled them into their seats like a big wet ciao.
O daffy panoply O rare device

O flashing...

By George Starbuck

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