J. R. Solonche

Yeats

“What is the most important word
in the poem?” I asked.

“Swan,” one said.
“No,” I said.

“October,” one said.
“No,” I said.

Just as I was about to tell them myself,
one said, “Changed.”

“Yes,” I said.
“And what are the two most important

words in the poem?” I asked.
And the same one said, “All’s changed.”

J. R. Solonche

is a four-time Pushcart Prize nominee and has been publishing poems in magazines, journals, and anthologies since the early 70s. He is coauthor of Peach Girl: Poems for a Chinese Daughter (Grayson Books) and teaches at SUNY Orange in New York's Hudson Valley.