Sara Watson

Foggy Night

Bio: Sara Watson is a feminist poet and educator. Her poems have recently appeared in Salamander, Brink, and The Florida Review, and her chapbook, Our Imaginary Childhood, is available from Finishing Line Press. She lives with animals in Pittsburgh. Sara’s website is: www.swatson.net

Statement:  Foggy Night and its accompanying soundtrack called out to me, but it also presented a problem: How to write a poem about fog after Sandburg’s six exquisite little lines? For answers I looked to the film. I was enchanted by the liquidity of movement in the blurry light, and by the way the streetlamps seemed to mark a path straight to me, to the viewer, to you. Well, give me a slow, damp scene and put a you in it, and I’ll show you a love poem. I’ve always been a sucker for a sonnet, the way the rhyme sort of carries one along, and I decided in the end to just let Sandburg’s poem in there, too.