Katy Bridge

“Delicious was the tension between our world and the other world. How it brushed our bones with silver. How there was no other world.”

—This Poem is Curious

“Your book is stunning! I am especially in awe of "This Poem is Curious," "Death Sequence," and "Since you will leave me or I will leave you.'" But all the poems are beautiful and wise. 

A deep abiding tenderness courses through David Watts’ latest collection Katy Bridge. With grace and precision, the poet places us right there on the bridge beside him, where “walking the rails gets a tad different with trestles on either side. Always a train somewhere up the tracks.” Here is the radiant present, perfectly expressed, and the bridge becomes both memory and metaphor. These wise, wide awake poems reveal each moment as bridge between past and future, the body as bridge between mysteries, and love as bridge between solitudes. Like stones “rounded by the watery sandpaper of the ocean” and “polished . . . with my thumb, withdrawing some element of me upon them, shiny as a blessing,” these poems seem to be patiently shaped by the process of living in this world, then polished in the rare luminosity of Watts’ vision. This is a book to savor and return to.”

—Erin Rodoni, Winner of the Michael Waters Prize for Poetry

Having and Keeping

“Beauty contains absence, or the threat of absence.”

—“We Came Upon a Clearing at Evening”

“Human loneliness and disconnect -- alongside the undying appetite and need for love -- deliver the theme-song for Having and Keeping, a poetry celebration to which I came early, stayed late, and linger.”

—Al Young, California’s former poet laureate

“In his newest volume, David Watts draws us back to the wellspring of origins: ‘They made me / out of farming and music / embryo / with two lines tangled.’ From the lush pastoral of his roots to the complexities and delights of relationships and parenting, these poems are gorgeous lyrical arrows sent out in many directions at once, never satisfied with the ease of conclusion, proclaiming ‘the poem will finish when it wants to. But it will not have answers.’ Abiding in the mystery, touching at the edge of our limitations, Watts turns the matter of our lives over in varied and wondrous ways, revealing ‘how the world is beyond us / even as we live inside it.’ Infused with sensory riches and the awe of the ‘strange lightness of the body,’ HAVING AND KEEPING offers us its ‘rare blessing’ of beauty.”

—Jennifer K. Sweeney, author of LITTLE SPELLS

He listens so heavily

into the heartbeat of her that he hears the murmuring

of aspens on the hillside.

Lovers in Rufaro

“Distraction is better than frustration as a means of keeping someone glued to a difficult task.”

—“Bringing Along the Ancestors”

When I thought I was dying I wrote a small collection of love poems for my wife. I published it and gave it to her. This little volume was only released locally, but if someone is passionately determined to own a copy they can contact me directly.

I didn’t die. This book stands, as is often the case in creative activity, as an attempt to convert stress and worry into something that rises above it all, something, if lucky, of lasting value.

Out of print

(Wolf Ridge Press)

Maybe,

if we lift a few small words of praise

time might slow a beat

to honor what we stumble to say.

At High Altitude

“The moon is looking for us with its whipped-cream light.”

In 2014, this little chapbook of 31 poems made of 31 words won second place in the Sunken Garden Chapbook Contest and was runner-up in the Pudding House National Contest. Pudding House wanted to publish it. We made it to the final galleys and the publisher died. So sorry. And so the book never reached the public, poised as it were, on the edge. It made me think of Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony, and other such sorrows.

Anyway, I suppose I could copy the galleys if anyone wants to own “A Very Interesting Work That Almost Made It.”

Suspended

(Pudding House Publications)

a woman sang in my ear

as we made love a song that mothers sing

bending over children or hymnals or quilts

each spacious note a new safe place my longing

almost gone my ear open

Blessing

“The child will arrive its own sweet way, passing through beauty and that which we do not choose to remember.”

—“Photograph not Taken”

“His language. . . enlivens everything he writes. Each poem seems to contain at least one comparison that lingers in the mind.”

                                                                                    —The Pharos

Both Duston and Gabriel, our sons, were born preemies at 7 months, just over 4 pounds in weight. Their ordeal and that of their parents through toxemia, birth and the Neonatal ICU is chronicled in the poems contained in the two books, Making and Blessing. These poems mark for the boys the unremembered starting part of their lives on this earth and may serve as reassurance for others facing similar situations.

Out of print

(Barnwood press)

come imitate

the proximity

we once had

before the light

and the birth

every darkness

wants its past

returned

Making

“If anything, love is deepened by our sorrows swimming in the body.”

—“Abundance”

“David Watts’ poems are finely crafted, replete with vivid images. In places his economy of language and metaphoric leaps recall William Carlos Williams. These poems display a wide emotional range and buzz with energy.”

                                                                                    —Jack Coulehan

Both Duston and Gabriel, our sons, were born preemies at 7 months, just over 4 pounds in weight. Their ordeal and that of their parents through toxemia, birth and the Neonatal ICU is chronicled in the poems contained in the two books, Making and Blessing. These poems mark for the boys the unremembered starting part of their lives on this earth and may serve as reassurance for others facing similar situations.

Out of print

(Talent House Press)

In Vitro Fertilization

What we want is the cloud

in the Petri dish.

Swell your mincy juices

to the needle tip, a lick,

a taste of the sauce it takes

to make a child.

Taking the History

“The edge we choose and the one that chooses us.”

—“Two Edges”

“David Watts has the eye, ear and heart of a poet and, just as importantly for this book, the poetic subject that allows him to use his considerable powers to their fullest the human body with all its frailty and strength as a metaphor for our existence. With linguistic precision for image and phrase that recalls William Carlos Williams' ‘Plum blossoms on the ground / like frost flakes. And my friend lies still / in the ICU...’ David Watts convinces the reader that ‘the body needs a washing out’ and that ‘the heart can harm itself,’ leaving us with the recognition that our body is the world and the world is our body. I love these poems for presenting the horrifying fragility of our existence and the incredible resilience and strength with which we meet our individual fates.”

—Len Roberts, poet

Out of print

(Nightshade Press)

a little light

a little drifting music

and the body unfolds like a universe

Slow Waking at Jenner-by-the-Sea

“something about the ocean being so near that doesn’t need watching”

A tiny saddle-stitched booklet published in a limited edition of 100 copies that contains one long poem about the escape to the seaside, and how, once there, the mind unfolds to its own escape.

Out of print

(Radiolarian Press)

something about the ocean being so near

that doesn't need watching

last night's mineral sex

just a taste in our mouths

Here’s a sample poem. A sonnet representing, I suppose, my journey through formality.

Cool Night Rain

Outside the cool night rain comes down,

Like a thousand crickets making their sound.

Somehow the wind drives through my wall,

And leaves a chill as though the fall

Were bowing out to winter’s cold;

And yet the summer is not old.

The sky is dark but darker still

Are thrashing treetops, bent against will,

And leaves ripped off scurry away

Like coveys of quail flushed at dog’s bay.

As torrents cut in the street below

A swirling patchwork, the lustrous glow

Of shrouded streetlamps casts the light

That carves its etching out of night.

Spring’s Boy

“Early maturity is of less value than it seems.”

This is my first book. The poems are mine. The photographs are mine. I don’t write this way any more but it does reflect the significant subjects of the time, growing up in Texas, Practicing and Teaching at UCSF, my service in Germany, my family, my wishes, my worries, and of course, fiddling around in the darkroom. I suppose it is a time capsule of a moment in the life long past.

Out of print

(Crescent Publications)