When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses… We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth. — John F. Kennedy
Ariel Francisco I heard them and I still hear themabove the threatening shrieks of police sirensabove the honking horns of morning traffic,above the home-crowd cheers of Yankee Stadiumabove the school bells and laughterlighting up the afternoonabove the clamoring trudge of the 1 trainand the 2 and 4, 5, 6, the B and the Dabove the …
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Kathleen A Dale i. Nine thousand years seems long but for the imagination: see a Siberian girl smile as she reaches out to touch the saggital crest (shaped like an arrow, indicating strong jaw muscles) on the head of a Husky, once-removed from wolf, panting by the fire after pulling home a sled of reindeer meat. Now, see them …
Jorie Graham (May 09, 1950 -) you ask meagain—whyputting your tiny hand onthe not yetunsheathedbud on therhododendronand I seeI need to be skyI need to be soilthere are no wordsfor why that Ican find fastenough, whyyou say atthe foot of the cherry’s wideblossomfallis it dead now whydid it let go, why,tossed outinto what appearsto be …
Maurice Manning One morning when the weather was strangeand haunted following a rain—I believe a fog had settled likea thought over the field and the sunthat peered through it troubled the thought—I remember saying to myself,for no one was around, it’s likewe’re living in a Turner painting,a haunted cave of melodyso indistinct, almost unseen.As if …
Seamus Justin Heaney (April 13, 1939 – August 30, 2013) I can feel the tugof the halter at the napeof her neck, the windon her naked front.It blows her nipplesto amber beads,it shakes the frail riggingof her ribs.I can see her drownedbody in the bog,the weighing stone,the floating rods and boughs.Under which at firstshe was …
Jim Peterson For Harriet I followed you up the faceof that cliff-riddled mountain.I am tall, stiff, scared of heights. You are small, lithe, quick and notscared of anything in the physicalworld. At first the easy handholds and footholds gave me confidence.But narrow ledges curving underoverhangs began to take their toll. I stalled, my face pressed …
Tao Writer (April 17, 1948 -) For most of my adult life I have been a holder. I draw away the pain as best I can.I am the one who holds. Arms are good for that. They were made to wrap around and embrace. Arms cannot run like legs or see like eyes, but they …
Mi-Mi Monahan Her mother makes her dinner every night.We sit at the table and say grace with hands pressedlike clenched thighs and I pray they can’t tell my motherdoesn’t believe in god and doesn’t cook. So I eatall the peas off my plate while she complains over the two bites she’s forced to takefor a …
James Davis May Even on the night my friend died after a long illness— I won’t use the word battle, but the cancer was gone, and then it came back, like some slasher film killer— even on that night, the feral cat, the one that’s white and fluffy and sometimes affectionate, still crossed our driveway, …
Eleanor Rand Wilner For years he had been hidden, quiet,huge head on his paws,almost a sphinx in his composure,a figure waitingfor a breeze to move the densegreen canopy of leaves overhead,enough to bring a hair-thin laser lineof light downinto the endless twilightbelow;he had been patient, waitingfor the underbrush to open, for a lowwind to enter, …
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Phillip Lopate It's good we only see each other once a week.A young man about to move in with his fiancéedied of a sudden heart attack at twenty-six.One hears these stories all the time.The heart is trained to handle deprivation,not unforeseen happiness. Just as when youthrow your arms around me I start to overflow,but then …
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Ellen Bass (June 16, 1947 -) I try to look at the big picture. The sun, ardent tonguelicking us like a mother besottedwith her new cub, will wear itself out. Everything is transitory.Think of the meteorthat annihilated the dinosaurs.And before that, the volcanoesof the Permian period — all those burnt fernsand reptiles, sharks and bony fish —that …
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (September 29, 1810 – November 12, 1865) Sunday July 4th 1836 I made a vow within my soul, O Child,When thou wert laid beside my weary heart,With marks of death on every tender partThat, if in time a living infant smiled,Winning my ear with gentle sounds of loveIn sunshine of such joy, …
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Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer What could be more valuablethan nothing? The nothing thatframes “The Thinker,” the nothingthat holds every bowl,every vase, every bust, every thought.Let others buy the clay, the steel,the papier-mâché. I will be satisfiedwith nothing more than nothing.Nothing pleases me. Nothingenchants me. Nothing,as Heisenberg says,has a weight. Just thinkof the space here beside mewhere …
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JR Solonche Go out and listen to the frogs, he said.They speak for you. So I went out to listen to the frogsas he said, for he was a poet and spoke with passion and audacious authority.And in the moonlight at the pond, I listened to the frogs speaking to one another,and after a while …
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Tracy K Smith (April 16, 1972 -) I wish it would grab me by the ankles and pull.I wish its shadow would dance up close, closing in.When I close my eyes a presence forms, backs away.I float above a lake, am dragged backfrom a portion of sky. Down, down, the falling doesn’t end.Every marked body …
Anya Krugovoy Silver (December 22, 1968 – August 6, 2018) There’s no doubt it’s the most glamorous,the one you reach for first—its luscious gloss.Russian Roulette, First Dance, Apéritif, Cherry Pop.For three days, your nails are a Ferris wheel,a field of roses, a flashing neon Open sign.Whatever you’re wearing feels like a tight dressand your hair …
Philip Schultz (January 06, 1945 -) To pay for my father’s funeralI borrowed money from peoplehe already owed money to.One called him a nobody.No, I said, he was a failure.You can’t remembera nobody’s name, that’s whythey’re called nobodies.Failures are unforgettable.The rabbi who read a stock eulogyabout a man who didn’t belong toor believe in anythingwas …
Nate Marshall today i offer my selfall the small kindnesses. i’m out herewith breath in my bodythough it may be stank& body in my controlthough it may be too muchor not enough. today i offer the whole criba jam we ain’t heard in a minute& permission to turn the news down& move a hip like …
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Billy Collins (March 22, 1941 -) You are the bread and the knife,The crystal goblet and the wine… —Jacques Crickillon You are the bread and the knife,the crystal goblet and the wine.You are the dew on the morning grassand the burning wheel of the sun.You are the white apron of the baker,and the marsh birds …
Ishion Hutchinson In memoriam Adam Zagajewski (June 21, 1945 - March 21, 2021) Cool as the breeze, springcomes and proves the provenblank which was sorrowa turbulent need, a healing.Who am I kidding? To say “spring,”and to say so on the front stepsjust after noon in the bright cool of the day,is a form of dissolution.How …
Lisel Mueller (February 8, 1924 – February 21, 2020) We bring our hands togetherin applause, that absurd noise,when we want to be silent. We might as wellbe banging pots and pans,it is that jarring, a violationof the music we've listened towithout moving, almost holding our breath.The pianist in his blindinglywhite summer jacket bowsand disappears and …
Adam Zagajewski (June 21, 1945 – March 21, 2021) To go to Lvov. Which stationfor Lvov, if not in a dream, at dawn, when dew gleams on a suitcase, when expresstrains and bullet trains are being born. To leave in haste for Lvov, night or day, in September or in March. But only if Lvov exists,if it is …
John Keats ( October 31, 1795 – February 23, 1821) Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;Conspiring with him how to load and blessWith fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;To swell the gourd, and plump …
Neil Richard MacKinnon Gaiman (November 10, 1960 -) For Arthur Eddington 1.To find the many in the onehe sweated under foreign skiesto see the stars behind the sun.So space and time were now undonereality was undisguised.We found the many in the one.There is no photograph, not one,that shows the mind behind the eyes.He saw the …
WS Merwin (September 30, 1927–March 15, 2019) When they start to wear your clothesdo their dreams become more like yourswho do they look likewhen they start to use your languagedo they say what you saywho are they in your wordswhen they start to use your moneydo they need the same things you needor do the …
Diane di Prima (August 6, 1934 – October 25, 2020) For Jackson Allen My friend wears my scarf at his waistI give him moonstonesHe gives me shell & seaweedsHe comes from a distant city & I meet himWe will plant eggplants & celery togetherHe weaves me cloth …
Deborah Landau So whatever’s the opposite of a Buddhist that’s what I am.Kindhearted, yes, but knee deep in existential gloom,except when the fog smokes the bridges like this—like, instead of being afraid we might juice ourselves up,eh, like, might get kissed again? Dwelling in bones I go straightthrough life, a sublime abundance—cherries, dog’s breath, the …
Alejandra Pizarnik (April 29, 1936 – September 25, 1972) Once again, someone falls in their first falling–fall of two bodies, of two eyes, of four green eyes or eight green eyes if we count those born in the mirror (at midnight, in the purest fear, in the loss), you haven’t been able to recognize the …
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) ‘Tis good — the looking back on Grief —To re-endure a Day —We thought the Mighty Funeral —Of All Conceived Joy —To recollect how Busy GrassDid meddle — one by one —Till all the Grief with Summer — wavedAnd none could see the stone.And though …
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Dorianne Laux (January 10, 1952 -) On the street outside the windowsomeone is talking to someone else,a baffling song, no words, only the musicof voices—low contralto of questions,laughter’s plucked strings—voices in darknessbelow stars where someone straddles a bikeup on the balls of his feet, and someone elsestands firm on a curb, her arms crossed, twodogs …
Thomas Hardy (June 02, 1840 – January 11, 1928) Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me,Saying that now you are not as you wereWhen you had changed from the one who was all to me,But as at first, when our day was fair. Can it be you that I hear? Let …
Ada Limón On the black wet branches of the linden,still clinging to umber leaves of late fall,two crows land. They say, “Stop,” and still I wantto make them into something they are not.Odin’s ravens, the bruja’s eyes. What newsare they bringing of our world to the worldof the gods? It can’t be good. More sufferingall …
If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation. —Jiddu Krishnamurti
The truest philosophy, is not to long for anything in particular, but to accept everything as it comes, and find out the reason of it coming. — Marie Corelli
...If one looks long enough at almost anything, looks with absolute attention at a flower, a stone, the bark of a tree, grass, snow, a cloud, something like revelation takes place. — May Sarton
The most we can do is to write — intelligently, creatively, evocatively — about what it is like living in the world at this time. — Oliver Sacks
When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses... We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth. — John F. Kennedy
