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Column 670

Monopoly

Intro by Ted Kooser
01.21.2018

I’m writ­ing this col­umn on a very cold day, and it’s nice to be inside with a board game to play, but bet­ter yet, for me at least, to be inside with a poem about a board game. This Monop­oly game by Con­nie Wanek is from her book Rival Gar­dens: New and Select­ed Poems, from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Nebras­ka Press.

Monopoly

We used to play, long before we bought real houses.
A roll of the dice could send a girl to jail.
The money was pink, blue, gold, as well as green,
and we could own a whole railroad
or speculate in hotels where others dreaded staying:
the cost was extortionary.
 
At last one person would own everything,
every teaspoon in the dining car, every spike
driven into the planks by immigrants,
every crooked mayor.
But then, with only the clothes on our backs,
we ran outside, laughing.
 

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Disclaimer

We do not accept unsolicited submissions

We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2016 by Connie Wanek, “Monopoly,” from Rival Gardens: New and Selected Poems, (Univ. of Nebraska Press, 2016). Poem reprinted by permission of Connie Wanek and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.

Column 669