Mark Irwin

Mark Irwin (1953 - ) was born in Faribault, Minnesota. He received a BA from Case Western Reserve University in 1974, an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 1980, and a PhD from Case Western Reserve University in 1982. He is the author of nine poetry collections. Irwin now lives in Colorado and Los Angeles, where he teaches in the creative writing and literature program at the University of Southern California.

The Smaller House

While building the larger house, he lived a very simple life

in the smaller house he’d built before, the house without

water or power, the 12 x 20 foot house with three windows,

a single bed, a chair, the house whose thousand books lined

the walls, including some he’d written in the house, written

by window light or the Coleman lantern he’d charge

each day at the hot-springs pool where he swam

every morning , and now that he lived in the larger house

with every convenience, he missed living in the smaller

house with none, where sometimes he’d lean against a window

at dusk just to finish a line, and where once, in the dark, he wrote

in pencil a dream on the wall, then went back to sleep.

— Mark Irwin