Congratulations

How delightful that Anne Pierson Wiese has won the Walt Whitman Award--she's a wonderful poet, and truly deserving. Here's one of her poems that we ran in the spring/summer '05 issue of West Branch:

The Great Roberto

Cooking bare chested to avoid staining
his good shirt, he stirs the risotto,
pours champagne into crystal flutes, sews
black bass into parchment painstakingly.

What we want to know is: Where's your bed?
The apartment is 300 square feet
and we can't locate it. No--really,
where is it? He waves at the long banquet

table and the cocktail bar he's improvised
with a board and French linen: Relax.
Do you know the trick to risotto? He extracts
a one-ounce orange box, passes it before our eyes:

truffle powder. A pinch. His long fingers
linger wand-like above the pot--then flicker.