Mowing (Robert Frost)

Happy Easter! And I'm sure there must be Easter poems out there, but I couldn't find any that were literary (at least with my brief search). But then my eye caught on this poem by Robert Frost because my husband mowed the lawn for the first time this year today. Mowing the lawn, like Easter, is kind of a marker for the season.

In this sonnet, there is a lot of rhyming, but it's not standard so I couldn't identify a scheme. Maybe just a ton of slant rhyme?

Besides the fact that this poem made me think what mowing the lawn would be like without a lawn mower (hard!), I like through sweat/hard work he uncovers the honest truth of nature. It's all so related in this nutshell of a poem.

Favorite line: "There was never a sound beside the wood but one"

There was never a sound beside the wood but one,

Sparrow Trapped in the Airport (Averill Curdy)

I almost forgot. I'd turned off my computer and was brushing my teeth when I remembered: poem! So tiredness and a quick search yielded today's poem by Averill Curdy.

I like it - who hasn't seen a sole bird trapped inside an airport? Those automatic doors, the hordes of people, the tall, glass ceilings. It must happen all the time. I like that Averill Curdy took the time to notice and remark on it.

Perhaps because I am tired, but I read the first half without really picking out any meaning or finding any neat language - the bird's frantic arrival.

The end though is meaningful. The bird - a reminder of lives less encumbered.

Favorite line: "Looking more like a fumbled punch line"

Butterfly with Parachute (Stephen Burt)

Woo, what a surprise I got when I opened poems.com looking for today's post. For today's poem was written by my English professor at Macalester! He's moved on to Harvard, but I loved taking his classes at Mac. He was such a light for poetry. Stoked my enthusiasm for the stuff.

Anyways, in the poem he writes about his son drawing. He draws a butterfly (Burt does a fantastic job writing the drawing) and then gives the butterfly a parachute.

A different kid's butterfly sans parachute.

I like how he describes his son's drawing - "four oblongs the size and color of popsicles" - accurate and child-like. I also like how he sums it up at the end - telling a why for the parachute, which is also telling the why of drawing and therefore the why of writing, of any creation. 

Favorite line: "green apple, toasted coconut and grape, / flanked, two per side, by billowing valentine hearts"

Lot's Wife (Gary J. Whitehead)

Easter approaches, so a biblical poem (by Gary Whitehead) will be for today's post.

It's a lovely poem that tells of what happened next as Lot and family leave Sodom. Some great phrasing, but it's a simple tale of what people do after disaster. Look and see and shift through.

I like how ordered the poem is - all those tercets. The last, single line seems a bit superfluous. I think it's there to be a bit of a gotcha, bam! And, of course, to throw in that seal-the-deal last Biblical reference. It's kind of cheap, but the rest of the poem is so strong I don't mind it much. 

Favorite line: "her head turned back as if in longing to be the girl / she had been in the city she had known."

The Pain (Laura Kasischke)

Although I don't like the title of today's poem by Laura Kasischke, I do think the rest of it is pretty good.

The title is vague and doesn't make want to click through to read the poem. It's too abstract. However, the poem (short and sweet) uses straight forward language to talk about how one thing means another. How some see the Virgin Mary in a piece of toast; how some see value and strength in pain; how kindness can sometimes make you cry.

I think that's a neat idea to explore. Wish the poem had actually been longer, to talk more about the idea she introduces.

Favorite line: "Into faces, faces / With expressions / Of exhaustion, of disdain."

Into faces, faces
With expressions
Of exhaustion, of disdain. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23417#sthash.q5aJ54pi.dpuf

Into faces, faces
With expressions
Of exhaustion, of disdain. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23417#sthash.q5aJ54pi.dpuf

Meeting and Passing (Robert Frost)

A quick look at this sonnet by Robert Frost.

It's got simple, direct language. It's got a smirk of humor and a twist at the end. I think all 3 of those things can be said about most Robert Frost poems. It's not one of my favorite Frost poems, but then again it's hard to be amazing all of the time.

Favorite line: "There was a gate I had leaned at for the view"

There was a gate I had leaned at for the viewT

Housebound (Jacquelyn Pope)

Like in the poem by Jacquelyn Pope, I too have been house bound today. It's the observed day for Cesar Chavez, so it's been a no-work day for me. Cool, no? And speaking of cool, today's poem has it in spades.

I love that this poem is so repetitious and that the lines don't break in boring ways. It's her talent that I don't stumble over the lines even though they don't break where I would expect them to.

It such fun to read. I bet it wouldn't be quite as fun if I were just hearing it without seeing it. The line breaks make this poem for me. They really do.

Favorite line: "You've made your bed they said / now you must lie in it lean / down the length of it sink"

Rise & Fall (Coleman Barks)

This poem by Coleman Barks is both short and sweet.

It tells of of what the movement you half-see out of the corner of your eye might be. Since it's "late November" the blips that ascend are birds and those that move downward must be fallen leaves. 

I like that in late November there are only 2 possibilities for all that you catch sight of. I also like the dance-like rhythm of the last line - you can almost see the fallen leaf fluttering to the ground. 

Favorite line: "They keep the float-down flying / of wobbly, no-longer-trying, dead-tired wings."

Cahoots (Carl Sandburg)

Hehe, I am so amused by this poem by Carl Sandburg.

It doesn't quite seem like a poem - more like a piece of prose, an impression really. I get a sense of a 1920s bootlegging scene - dunno if that was is his mind as he wrote, but something amoral, make-a-deal is going on.

And then that last bit about mittens! Cracks me up every time I read it. I suddenly imagine these criminal types high as the moon or drunk as crazy and coming up with this great idea of mitten wearing.

This poem wouldn't be worth anything to me without that slide of a last bit. It caught me off guard and made this poem memorable. I'm still giggling about it.

Favorite line: "There oughta be a law everybody wear mittens."

There oughta be a law everybody wear mittens.

Ring (Melissa Stein)

I like this poem by Melissa Stein.

It starts and I think I'm in for a modern-sounding nature poem. Ok, but I don't really care - some neat sounds, but I'm not enthralled. But then it loops back to the title with its smash of a last line and I'm hooked. I read the thing again.

I see the hints of control she laid. The wanting to control the sun, the stars. That she focuses on partnered things - sun and night, or sun and stars, the sky and a peak, a lake and its bank.

It seems a moment of pride - her announcing the removal of the wedding ring. But because it was preceded by examples of couples in nature it seems that there might be a sense of shame and unnaturalness to the act.

Favorite line: "the night / when it curved, / when it swayed"

the night
when it curved,
when it swayed

Elegy with a City in It (Reginald Dwayne Betts)

It's driving me nuts. What is this poem? So many repeated end-stop words. Why?? What form is Reginald Betts using? Is it even a form or did he create one?

If someone can tell me what form (if it is an actual form) this is, I would appreciate it.

The poem itself is rather neat - I would love to hear it read aloud. The repeated words form a beat that drive the poem.

I like the two stanzas whose end-cap words are colors - red/black. Those two seem stronger to me.

I love the words he has chosen, "red", "black", "awe/awful", and "still". They are fantastic words to talk about urban violence and destruction (which is what I got from my reading). And the fact that he uses them with such density makes me think of dense urban spaces and their cadence reminds me of music with a heavy beat like rap. Even the long stanzas bring to mind tall, skinny, city skyscrapers. 

Favorite line: "Death almost invented when red / was the curse of men born black / and lost in a drama Reagan read / as war: crack vials and cash and red / in our eyes"

Days of Future Dwell (Samuel Amadon)

Poets.org classified this poem by Samuel Amadon as poem about the future. I guess I can see that, but when I first read it, I thought it was more about the art of creation.

It starts with a dancer (creator of art) and moves through creating something - the feelings ("be happy again") and the act ("why I pick the tact / from the floor, why I / finger it like a shell."). It ends with the knowing fact that art (like life) keeps on.

Maybe it's the future of creativity? Your creative spark is not lost (you may have hit a patch of writers' block), but it is a constant presence. If it seems lost, it's not. It is only trailing a little bit behind ("you / can hear it all coming").

Favorite line: "As grass is covered / with grass that's mown"

As grass is covered
with grass that’s mown,a

why I pick the tack
from the floor, why I
finger it like a shell. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23409#sthash.iZDKZ38C.dpuf

why I pick the tack
from the floor, why I
finger it like a shell. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23409#sthash.iZDKZ38C.dpuf

Things That Have Changed Since You Died: (Laura Kasischke)

It's been a long day, so the talk about today's poem (by Laura Kasischke) will be short.

It's a sweet, straight-forward, sentimental poem that makes me sigh deeply as I reach the end.

I like the examples she uses to describe the changes. It's very rooted in time/place. I know approximately when N lives and when You (who has died) lived. I wonder if this means that poem will not be one to read 15 years from now. The sentiment will remain, but no one may care (or know) the stories of the details.

Favorite line: "We/ send each other mail without stamps."

Fear (Charles Simic)

While there are two Charles Simic poems at the link, I only want to talk about one - Fear.

One because it is short. And two because it seems so simple - almost as though he had a thought and wrote it down verbatim. I like that sense of happenstance.

I've definitely seen what he is describing. Though, it's odd because I think of spring tree leaves doing this and during those times fear is far my mind. But because of the emotion, I retroactively imagine the tree to be dry and dead - late fall. Fear for a fall scene.

Like there are in this poem, when present, I like to read each short line (title included) as a poem-within-a-poem. Here, they yield: " Fear / Unknowing / To another. ". And that actually stands by itself as a mini-definition of fear. Neat-o.

Favorite line: "Fear passes from man to man / Unknowing"

Wanting is - What? (Robert Browning)

Ah, a classic! I've seen this poem by Robert Browning before in a Norton Anthology, so it's part of canon, though I've never considered it before.

It seems to be a concrete poem (the lines form some recognizable object). It makes a cross. The words make me think of the advent of spring - flowers and abundance. But because the lines make a cross it makes me think of the ever renewing promise in Christianity.

Favorite line: "And all that was death / Grows life, grows love, / Grows love!"

And all that was death
                Grows life, grows love,
                     Grows love! - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23404#sthash.FMBqIr6U.dpuf

And all that was death
                Grows life, grows love,
                     Grows love! - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23404#sthash.FMBqIr6U.dpuf

Tablet (Chris Dombrowski)

I picture Northern Minnesota when I read this poem by Chris Dombrowski. I don't know where the landscape he describes resides, but it definitely brings to mind the lakes on the iron range up there - the snow, the raspberries, the trout.

Looking at it, I, at first, thought it was a sonnet. It's 16 lines though - a little too long. It could be a modern (doesn't have to follow the rules) sonnet.

Who knows. But it's a calm, nature-y poem and feels very familiar.

Favorite line: "beneath two clouds and blue sky no one / built."

poem to my uterus (Lucille Clifton)

I love Lucille Clifton. Her poems have a voice that is so straight-forward, so unglossed. You can picture an older lady on a bus using her lines to describe what ails her. Not really polite conversation, but funny and honest. Much like her poem for today, "poem to my uterus".

I can't really add much because it's all laid so bare in the poem. It's short and poignant and funny and gives you a real sense of the speaker - what kind of woman she is.

Stylistically, I also like her non-use of punctuation. How in the first line, there is no comma, but that long gap acts just like one. How there are no capitals, which makes this poem about an uterus less brazen and more personal - like she is telling her diary and it's your fault for being offended since you were peaking at her private thoughts.

Favorite line: "you      uterus / you have been patient / as a sock"

you uterus you have been patient as a sock

you uterus you have been patient as a sock

you uterus you have been patient as a sock

Put Me Down (Paul Muldoon)

It's late and I was going to talk about a short little poem I saw on poets.org, but then I check the poem-of-the-day and I just melted because goddamn, but Paul Muldoon is a talented poet. I mean, geez. This poem of his is so simple and yet so complicated. It's kind of a wonder.

I don't know if it is in an official form, but it's definitely going with its own imposed rules. ABABCDCDDD - it's very song-like. The part that goes DDD is like the chorus.

The poem is a love poem expressed in objects of war. Clever, but not the most heart-felt (for me), but the cleverness of the form sure shines it up.

Favorite line: "I want to be the rifle butt / You hold close to your breast"

Kissinger at the Louvre (Three Drafts) (Daisy Fried)

Okay, so I just spent minutes cracking up at this poet's name. I know, very mature. Her poem, however, is fairly serious, though it is fun that she includes three versions of it in this one poem.

This poem takes a widening view of Harry Kissinger getting into a car. It's neat because as the scope of the poem widens, the poems themselves narrow.

I bet this really was three versions of the same poem. Each one trying to better get at the root (the importance/the non-importance) of the scene. I love that she chose to include all three into one poem. It's a view on the writing process/the act of creation.

Favorite line: "Bodyguard bends Kissinger / gently in, portly little Kissinger, gloves his head—"

Country Life (Amy Beeder)

Wow, I like today's poem by Amy Beeder more and more.

At first, I read, drifting off - a history lesson (yawn), but then the portrait of country life shifts. When I got to this line "battery acid, lye, brake cleaner, Sudafed, salt & red sulfur" I admit I had been skimming, but those nouns did not have the same hearty vibe that the earlier stanzas brought up and they caught my eye. Suddenly the poem had a darker edge. And it's true. I don't live in a rural area, but still I'm aware of the ravages of meth addiction and meth production on the countryside. 

I like that the poem which starts out as a history lesson, a trip down memory lane, ends up being a very topical, ripped-from-the-headlines kind of poem. Neat-o. 

Favorite line: "Where there's space to push the earth aside: that's the place  / to raise a child—here amid arrival's plenty"

Life (Joe Brainard)

This poem, by Joe Brainard, is, as you might guess from the title, about Life. It's a prose poem, though I can easily imagine the lines breaking into more poetic linebreaks. I wonder why he chose to create a prose poem.

There is nothing special about the language (which might make you think 'poem' even when it's done in paragraphs). There is also nothing special about the philosophy. It takes a subject which we all know about and doesn't add much to the telling. Seems a lot like the game, actually.

I really don't understand why this poem was published. How it was picked above another. It seems boring and unskilled. For me, it just does not work.

Favorite line: "When I stop and think about what it's all about I do come up with some answers, but they don't help very much."

WWhen I stop and think about what it's all about I do come up with some answers, but they don’t help very much. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23399#sthash.IRdWZUXP.dpuf

When I stop and think about what it's all about I do come up with some answers, but they don’t help very much. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23399#sthash.IRdWZUXP.dpuf

When I stop and think about what it's all about I do come up with some answers, but they don’t help very much. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23399#sthash.IRdWZUXP.dpuf

The Little Georgia Magnet (R. T. Smith)

Today's poem, by R. T. Smith, is very long (for this blog) and very regular (line length and beat). I looked for a meter, but one: I'm bad at identifying meter and two: I don't see a particular meter in this.

After reading it, I had the sneaking suspicion that it was rooted in a history, so I Googled the title and lo, and behold,  The Little Georgia Magnet (aka, Annie Abbott) was a real person!

She was, just as the poem describes, a performer who mystified those who could not lift her. What a fun topic to write a poem about.

Favorite line: "Maybe the soul / runs a quiet current like that, and when the body / gives way, I guess, it takes the secret exit"

The Birth of Injustice (Brad Leithauser)

Today's poem by Brad Leithauser makes me think of scenes in a movie. I see the neanderthal woman. I see her burying her 3 still-born or otherwise deceased children. I see her sadness, her inability to say why it is sad (why this sadness out of so much harshness). I can even see her, at the end, simply appreciating the simple pleasures in a day (the warmth of the sun on her chest).

Life is mostly harsh ('life is nasty, brutish and short'?) and that is the injustice? Or maybe the poem is saying that life is incredibly harsh and that the injustice is that every day leads you into optimism with some small gesture of pleasure.

Any way, it paints a bleak picture of the life of our ancestors (and of us).

Favorite line: "it's dawn, or dusk, no language for/ origins or ends, and yet the sun / is moving"

Civilization (Carl Phillips)

I love the poetry of Carl Phillips. I had to pick a poet to write about in a college class and somehow picked him and have been so glad for that chance introduction. His poem, Civilization, is kind of a case-in-point for why he's great.

He starts with a religious scene and melds his own relationship troubles into it but also with feelings of unworthiness that he has for himself. I think he's great at writing about how objects can stand for both themselves and something else - and of course, as it's described he ends up also talking (mostly, talking) about himself. And I think that's his big point - that any identity is a trinity. It's so cool.
 
Favorite line: "It / only looked, it -- / It must only look / like leaving. There's an art / to everything. Even / turning away."

It only looked, it—    It must only look like leaving. There's an art    to everything. Even    turning away. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/22240#sthash.FsSQGxxI.dpuf

It only looked, it—    It must only look like leaving. There's an art    to everything. Even    turning away. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/22240#sthash.FsSQGxxI.dpuf

Zeno's Sparrow (Arthur Smith)

Today's poem by Arthur Smith I've hardly time to look at, more than one quick read-through.

But, in that quick read-through, I can tell that Arthur Smith is talented. I love these phrasing and the images. They are neat and they bring to mind a place - the mountains of Appalachia. I love the way this poem sounds when read aloud. It just flows.

I don't know who Zeno (in the title) is supposed to be. I wonder if it's a person he knows or if it is a Greek/Roman archetype.

I wish I had more time to look into this poem. To see what it is trying to say. I will, hopefully, return to it. However, even with my cursory view I'm impressed. This poem is clever and well written. I feel like burrowing into it.

Favorite line: "Someone always is, but this one's / One of his, / And the difference / Is"

Ghazal: In Silence (Mimi Khalvati)

I learned a thing by reading this poem by Mimi Khalvati. I've heard of the poetic form ghazal before, but I had never looked into it, to really see what the form was. By reading, I can tell that a ghazal repeats, but I couldn't ever deduce more than that, really.

So here it is: a ghazal is more then 5 couplets in length. It does repeat and the first stanza is supposed to rhyme (in this poem, she cheats a little and uses a mono-rhyme for the first couplet). Each couplet should be able to stand by itself and the repeated phrase has to be preceded by the rhyme set up in the first stanza. The final couplet is supposed to contain a reference to the poet by name. This ghazal also does away with this requisite - it does cite the poet by name, but in the penultimate stanza. I think I've covered all needed parts now. So, it's a complex form, but one that doesn't use meter. But wow, you've got to be good at syntax and rhyme!

As for the poem today, the repeated line is 'in silence' which lends a sad quality to the poem. Which makes some sense as the poem is about a family member who has died.

I love the closing couplet in this poem: "Three syllables of equal weight, equal stress, / dropped in a well, keep falling short in silence." It could be a poem by itself. The sadness/grief is palpable.

Favorite line: "At last my Beloved has haggled with death. / 'One more day' was the pearl she bought in silence."

At last my Beloved has haggled with death.
'One more day' was the pearl she bought in silence. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23393#sthash.WykmKGG6.dpuf

Three syllables of equal weight, equal stress,
dropped in a well, keep falling short in silence. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23393#sthash.WykmKGG6.dpuf

Three syllables of equal weight, equal stress,
dropped in a well, keep falling short in silence. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23393#sthash.WykmKGG6.dpuf

Three syllables of equal weight, equal stress,
dropped in a well, keep falling short in silence. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23393#sthash.WykmKGG6.dpuf

One Art (Elizabeth Bishop)

I am late tonight and tired, so I'm not up for talking about a new poem, especially when the daily poem on the website I usually use is super long today. So, the poem for today, by Elizabeth Bishop, is one that I have been thinking of a lot lately.

One, this poem's form - a villanelle - is super tricky. I can't imagine writing one, but Elizabeth Bishop does and writes it will such feeling - it doesn't seem formal or stilted (a common side effect when using form). Applause for her.

I love the sense of speed you get from the thing. At first, she only loses minor things - keys, a wasted hour, but as the poem progresses she starts losing more and more. And that last line, the parenthetical, it just kills. It's like a speeding car that ends in a crash.

She was giving a lesson on losing, but at the end, she breaks. The emotion comes ringing through. I choke up when I read it aloud - no matter if for the nth time.

Favorite line: "Lose something every day. Accept the fluster / of lost door keys, the hour badly spent."

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15212#sthash.8rsPDKuV.dpuf

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15212#sthash.8rsPDKuV.dpuf

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15212#sthash.8rsPDKuV.dpuf

Glass of Water and Coffee Pot (Robin Robertson)

This poem by Robin Robertson has a line of attribution after the title: after Chardin. I had no idea what or who that was, so I Googled it. Chardin is a famous still-life painter from the 1700s. Knowing that, I can see the poem as ekphrasis - that is, it is a poem about a work of art. However, when I first read the poem, not knowing anything about Chardin, I thought the poem was simply talking about Spring as it described objects on a kitchen table. Since I am not familiar with Chardin or any of his paintings, I still rather like my interpretation.

I love all the nouns in this poem: wood, tongue-and-groove, white-washed walls, maple tree, weathered stone and brick, garlic heads, water glass, blackened coffee pot. So rooted in a time and place, so domestic, so homey. 

And I love that these nouns yield in the last three lines "harmony", "happiness", things that are "true". It makes me want to be in that kitchen on that Spring day. 

Favorite line: "The papery whiteness of the garlic heads is the same light / held in the water glass"

Necessity Defense of Institutional Memory (Camille Rankine)

This poem by Camille Rankine is super good.

Writing like this always kind of blows my mind. It's so simple - not a meaningless word is used and the idea expressed is so complex that to write it out in prose would takes pages. Love it.

This poem takes on the idea of memory - that you an event can happen and that for various reasons ("So the free may remain free", "so a life may be save"), in a way, two memories are formed. One that seems to tell the true truth and one that serves another purpose.  

The memory that forms splits. Which version do you follow, do you believe? The poem says: "one stays in the past and dies / one past shapeshifts    walks with you." So the memory that has the most use lives and 'walks with you'. Is the only truth. But since there are multiple truths, is the one that ends of being the one that 'walks with you', the true truth? 'What is truth' is such a rich question. I like this poem's take on it.

Favorite line: "so a life may be saved / the girl becomes an object / so the greatest devastation occurs / let go her fingers    their slim cleave"

Rule Book (Lauren Shapiro)

My, but there are a lot of 'rules' in life. You hear them all the time - at the amusement park, in school, with the police or in a security line, even glossy magazines and tv ads have their own self-contained rule set. They, however, seem utterly ridiculous when gathered all together, as they are in today's poem by Lauren Shapiro.

I like that this poem starts with rules commonly heard at pools or amusement parks - rules that are mostly understood to be needed - for one's own safety. But then, towards the end the poem, many of the rules are much more subjective. They seem to come from something like a modeling casting call. The absurdity of the rules is almost over-the-top.

Favorite line: " Are your eyes / at least two inches apart? We're really looking / for someone with a better sense of the absurd / who is naturally blonde."

The Letters (Jack Ridl)

I love the last name of today's poet. It's like a self-contained riddle. His poem, though, doesn't hide much. It's very straight forward, using everyday language.

N gets a letter from his mom who is in a nursing home and he is reminded of how her letters used to be and how her handwriting has changed as she's gotten older.

It's a sweet, familiar portrait. I like that even though the language is common, it's still clearly a poem.

N then turns from thinking of his mother and her letters to his sleeping wife and their in-progress Scrabble game. How the individual letters come together to spell out words. Maybe he is thinking how his mother's letters indicate her coming apart whereas the letter in their game demonstrate his wife's intelligence/cleverness.

I don't know. For me, the ending didn't have the same strength as the rest of the poem. It seemed too short, blunt. I kind of just want to hear more about N's mother. The poem went in a way I wasn't prepared for. Ah well.

Favorite line: "It was her elegance, a dignity/ she held between thumb and / forefinger."