MN poetry: Sasha Aslanian's "the robins"

Posted at 11:33 AM on February 28, 2011 by Marianne Combs (1 Comments)
Filed under: Minnesota Poets, Poetry

Poets tend to be a modest, covert lot. They walk amongst us, and yet we may have no idea who they are. Case in point: I've known MPR reporter/producer Sasha Aslanian for 18 years, but only discovered this week that she's a poet. Did she tell me? No - I stumbled across one of her poems on the St. Paul Sidewalk Poetry website. It turns out her words are imprinted in cement in nearly a dozen locations around town. I guess good poets just let their poetry speak for itself.

the robins

we notice them in the yard
our first spring
a couple searching to build
mud and snarls of straw
over the back door
sacred blue eggs inside

next year they come back
and choose the front door
then the garage
flattered
we never dismantle the
safe places of ten springs

- "the robins" by Sasha Aslanian, as imprinted in the sidewalks of St. Paul. Reprinted here with permission from the author. You can read Aslanian's poem - once the snow melts - at these locations.

Comments (1)

Thanks, Marianne! I hadn't written a poem since college but when I saw St. Paul was looking for sidewalk poets, I had to come up with something. I decided to write about the robins because they seemed to parallel the nest-building my husband and I were doing. We wondered if they were the same pair every year. Were we?

I'd follow Marcus Young, St. Paul's Artist in Residence, anywhere, on any idea. Trying to get up the nerve to dance in public. That's his latest mission.
http://www.graceminnesota.org/dyfit01.html

Posted by Sasha Aslanian | March 1, 2011 7:44 AM

Services

• Hourly Newscast
• HD Radio
• iPhone App / Mobile
• E-mail newsletters
• RSS feeds
• Podcasts
• Submit your photos
• Videos
• Weather
• Most e-mailed stories