“September,” by the American poet Joanne Kyger, was first published in Kyger's collection All This Every Day in 1975. It has since been reprinted in Going on: Selected Poems, 1958-1980 (1983) and As Ever: Selected Poems (2002). All three volumes are currently in print.
Kyger began her long poetic career as a young woman who moved to San Francisco in 1957 at the time of the literary movement known as the San Francisco Renaissance. There she was influenced by such poets as Jack Spicer and Robert Duncan and made friends with the “Beat” poets, including Gary Snyder and Allen Ginsberg.
Kyger has continued to publish her poems in a career that spans more than forty-five years.
“September” is an oblique poem; it hints at meanings rather than stating them outright. Kyger is interested in the way the mind connects one thing after another, and she does not feel that all the connections should be spelled out. Like many of her poems, “September” moves from outer to inner realities. It is primarily about spiritual revelation, the moment when perception is lifted above the ordinary, everyday world into some new dimension of life.
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