Keepers of the House by Max Heinegg

Praise for Keepers of the House

In his new collection of poems, Keepers of the House, Max Heinegg offers us, with unflinching candor and meditative depth, an exploration of the challenges of teaching literature in post-9/11 America. “New mornings begin as the small light/ returns,” he writes, “& the whiteboard shines/ words, black and clear as wisdom made/ fresh by attention.”  Indeed, these poems embody just that: freshness, attention, wisdom. Refusing the pride of platitude, the broad strokes of political abstraction, and the performative strain of the narcissistic, they model a more credible and compassionate reverence for the individual as inextricable from conflicts of our time. A gift, how commitment and self-doubt, in equal measure, might reassure us. A beautiful book.
— Bruce Bond, author of The Dove of the Morning News and Behemoth.

For the Student Who Slept Through the Lesson on 9/11

History is the smoke
of the towers as the boy’s
head rests in peace
on the desk asleep,
allowed. I know
he works all night
& just yesterday borrowed The Iliad
because his father made him read The Odyssey,
& though I’d roused him, he sleeps
again while the man falls,
an arrow, whose photographer saw, bisecting
the two buildings,
one where a high school friend died,
the other where my cousin worked & was on vacation from.
I wonder if this is what it means to teach
in the empire where soon there will be no
longer recognition
of fault or anger
waking him for the clip of Osama
who explains what will happen if America aims at Mecca & Medina,
& the flashback ends. The class is reminded
what Mecca means,
& the child who works to help feed his family has to
be told he’s missed the bell, that he was dreaming,
perhaps of places he wants to visit,
things he wants to happen in America.

Photo by Stella Heinegg

Max Heinegg is the author of Good Harbor (2022), which won the
inaugural Paul Nemser Prize from Lily Poetry Review Press, and
Going There (2023).
Born in Cooperstown, NY, and raised in Schenectady, NY, he received
his BA from Union College in 1995 and his MAT from Boston
University in 1998. He has taught English in the Medford Public Schools
since 1998.
His poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the
Net. He has won the Sidney Lanier Poetry Award, the Emily Stauffer
Poetry Prize, and was a finalist for the poetry prizes of Asheville Poetry
Review, December Magazine, Crab Creek Review, Cultural Weekly,
Rougarou Journal, Cutthroat Journal, Twyckenham Notes, West Virginia
Writers, and the Nazim Hikmet Prize.
His work has appeared in 32 Poems, The Cortland Review, Thrush,
Nimrod, and The Night Heron Barks, among others.
He is also a singer-songwriter whose records and adaptations of poems
from the public domain can be heard at http://www.maxheinegg.com
He lives in Medford, MA where he is the 2025-2027 poet laureate
of the city.