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
Wystan Hugh Auden aka WH Auden (February 21, 1907 – September 29, 1973) If all a top physicist knowsAbout the Truth be true,Then, for all the so-and-so’s,Futility and grime,Our common world contains,We have a better timeThan the Greater Nebulae do,Or the atoms in our brains.Marriage is rarely blissBut, surely it would be worseAs particles to …
Continue reading "WH Auden – After Reading A Child’s Guide To Modern Physics"
Tracy K. Smith (April 16, 1972 -) Comes in from a downpourShaking water in every direction —A collaborative condition:Gathered, shed, spread, thenForgotten, reabsorbed. Like loveFrom a lifetime ago, and mudA dog has tracked across the floor.
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) Under the Light, yet under,Under the Grass and the Dirt,Under the Beetle’s CellarUnder the Clover’s Root, Further than Arm could stretchWere it Giant long,Further than Sunshine couldWere the Day Year long, Over the Light, yet over,Over the Arc of the Bird —Over the Comet’s chimney —Over the …
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Jericho Brown (April 14, 1976 -) I don’t know whose side you’re on,But I am here for the peopleWho work in grocery stores that glow in the morningAnd close down for deep cleaning at nightRight up the street and in cities I mispronounce,In towns too tiny for my big blackCar to quit, and in every …
Continue reading "Jericho Brown – Say Thank You Say I’m Sorry"
Toi Derricotte (April 12, 1941 -) In the movie, flamingos migrate over Rome and restovernight on the terrace of Jep Gambardella, so that,in the rose light of dawn, he walks out to find his saintlyold guest, Sister Maria, meditating among a flamboyance—a hundred stand on pink stilt-like legs with roseate plumesand beaks sturdy as lobster …
Nikki Giovanni (June 07, 1943 -) Don't look nowI'm fading awayInto the gray of my morningsOr the blues of every night Is it that my nailskeep breakingOr maybe the cornon my second little piggyThings keep popping outon my face or of my lifeIt seems no matter howI try I become more difficultto holdI am not …
Continue reading "Nikki Giovanni – Cotton Candy On A Rainy Day"
Amanda Gorman Today we honor our three captainsFor their actions and impact inA time of uncertainty and need.They’ve taken the lead,Exceeding all expectations and limitationsUplifting their communities and neighborsAs leaders, healers, and educators.James has felt the wounds of warfare,But this warrior still sharesHis home with at-risk kids.During Covid, he’s event lent a hand,Live-streaming football for …
Susan Browne I know him, that manwalking- toward me up the crowded streetof the city, I have lived with himseven years now, I know his fast stride,his windy wheatfield hair, his hands thrustdeep in his jacket pockets, handsthat have known my body, touchedits softest part, caused its quick shuddersand slow releasings, I have seen his …
Christian Wiman I don’t want to be a spice store.I don’t want to carry handcrafted Marseille soap,or tsampa and yak butter,or nine thousand varieties of wine.Half the shops here don’t open till noonand even the bookstore’s brined in charm.I want to be the one store that’s open all nightand has nothing but necessities.Something to get …
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David Biespiel At first they stand, orphaned, like a line of birds,First on one foot, then the other, in unison,Like any other unnamed someones, as if poisedFor a firing line, until someone thinks he knowsA train is coming in the sparrow-morning light,And someone else taps a pack of cigarettesAgainst his gloved hand, not exotic,But it’s …
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) As imperceptibly as GriefThe Summer lapsed away—Too imperceptible at last,To seem like Perfidy—A Quietness distilledAs Twilight long begunOr Nature spending with herselfSequestered Afternoon—The Dusk drew earlier in—The Morning foreign shone—A courteous, yet harrowing Grace,As Guest, that would be gone—And thus, without a WingOr service of a …
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May Sarton (May 3, 1912 – July 16, 1995) With no wind blowingIt sifts gently down,Enclosing my world inA cool white down,A tenderness of snowing. It falls and falls like sleepTill wakeful eyes can closeOn all the waste and lossAs peace comes in and flows,Snow-dreaming what I keep. Silence assumes the airAnd the five senses …
Elizabeth Acevedo the slight angling up of the foreheadneck extension quick jut of chin meeting the strangers’ eyesa gilded curtsy to the sunfill in another in yourself tithe of respectin an early version the copy editor deleted the word “head” from the titlethe copy editor say sit’s implied the copy editor means wellthe copy editor …
Joy Harjo (May 09, 1951 -) To pray you open your whole selfTo sky, to earth, to sun, to moonTo one whole voice that is you.And know there is moreThat you can't see, can't hearCan't know except in momentsSteadily growing, and in languagesThat aren't always sound but otherCircles of motion.Like eagle that Sunday morningOver Salt …
Barbara Kingsolver (April 08, 1955 -) O misery. Imperfectuniverse of days stretched outahead, the string of pearlsand drops of venom on the web,losses of heart, of lifeand limb, news of the worst:Remind me againthe day will comewhen I look back amazedat the waste of sorry saltwhen I had no more than thisto cry about.Now I …
Jane Hirshfield (February 24, 1953 -) This first-light mountain, its east peak and west peak.Its first-light creeks:Lagunitas, Redwood, Fern. Their fishes and mosses.Its night and day hawk-life, slope-life, fogs, coyote, tan oaks,white-speckled amanita. Its spiderwebs’ sequins.To be personal is easy:Wake. Slip arms and legs from sleep into name, into story.I wanted to be mountainal, wateral, …
Saeed Jones (November 26, 1985 -) I wonder if my dead mother still thinks of me.I know I don’t know her new name. I don’t knowher, not now. I don’t know if “her” is the wordburning in a stranger’s mind when he sees my deadmother walking down the street in her bright blackdress. I wonder …
Virgil Suárez At this year’s conventionwe gather to pay homageto our fathers, responsiblemen who worked hard: laborers, stone cutters, welders,carpenters — blue collar all,men who raged, stormedtheir anger through the house, our mothers couldn’t manage,swept with brooms the debrisof broken things, in silencethey took it out on us, belts in hand, we stood there, cried,long …
Tanya Chernov I practiced flirting on an Italian trainleaving Switzerland, with a European boycamped out across from me.I liked him when he sat down,liked his messy hair, his loose sweater,his weathered pants that hung on himthe way pants ought to hang on a boy. I pretended not to notice him,tried to look my prettiest staring …
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Maxine Scates I still wore the cut-offs I’d hurried into her roomwearing that morning, and, as we inchedtoward an off-ramp in the valleyafter going to the mortuary and the cemeteryto make arrangements for the mass, the musicand the lowering, something shimmered,hovered the way it had all day, the waya month or so ago when I’d …
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer That was the afternoonwe watched the avalanches—dozens and dozens of themflowing over the cliff bands.How beautiful they werefrom a distance—bright falls of billowing snow.They began as dark rumble,then burst into plume, into rush.Unstoppable they were.Powerful. Inevitable.Such a gift to feel humbled,to exult in forcesgreater than our own. Later that night, readingthe tumbling …
Ella Wheeler Wilcox (November 5, 1850 – October 30, 1919) Laugh, and the world laughs with you;Weep, and you weep alone.For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,But has trouble enough of its own.Sing, and the hills will answer;Sigh, it is lost on the air.The echoes bound to a joyful sound,But shrink from voicing …
Sara Lupita Olivares obligatory orchidswave I crawl underthe leaves to understandthe garbage what is anyone’skarma besides amisunderstanding
David Graham As a father steals into his child's half-lit bedroomslowly, quietly, standing long and longcounting the breaths before finally slippingback out, taking care not to wake her,and as that night-lit child is fully awake the wholetime, with closed eyes, measured breathing,savoring a delicious blessing she couldn'tname but will remember her whole life,how often we …
Robin Coste Lewis There were six of us, but we paidjust for four. Before we reached the front,Daddy would pull the car out of lineso Ritchie and Stevie could jumpinside the trunk. We’d smile and shushright past the guard. I was five,and still wore felt pajamas with the feet in. The hefty steel speaker we …
Sue Ellen Thompson Sometimes, in the middle of a crowded store on a Saturdayafternoon, my husband will rest his handon my neck, or on the soft flesh belted at my waist,and pull me to him. I understandhis question: Why are we so fortunatewhen all around us, friends are falling preyto divorce and illness? It seems …
Billy Collins (March 22, 1941 -) I pick an orange from a wicker basketand place it on the tableto represent the sun.Then down at the other enda blue and white marblebecomes the earthand nearby I lay the little moon of an aspirin.I get a glass from a cabinet,open a bottle of wine,then I sit in …
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Alison Luterman Some girls can’t help it; they are lit sparklers,hot-blooded, half naked in the depths of winter,tagging moving trains with the bright insignia of theirfury.I’ve seen their inked torsos: falcons, swans, meteorshowers.And shadowed their secret rendezvous,walking and flying all night over paths traced like veinsthrough the deep body of the forestwhere they are trying …
Terrance Hayes (November 18, 1971 -) The father begins to make the sound a tree frog makesWhen he comes with his son & daughter to a pailOf tree frogs for sale in a Deep South flea marketJust before the last blood of dusk.A tree frog is called a tree frog because it chirpsLike a bird …
David Whyte (November 02, 1955 -) Sometimesif you move carefullythrough the forest,breathinglike the onesin the old stories,who could crossa shimmering bed of leaveswithout a sound,you come to a placewhose only taskis to trouble youwith tinybut frightening requests,conceived out of nowherebut in this placebeginning to lead everywhere.Requests to stop whatyou are doing right now,andto stop what …
Jasmin Roberts My grandmother will tell you thatshe does not like white people,does not look them in the eye. W.E.B. Du Bois coined the term double consciousness in 1903.It refers to the psychological experience of viewing oneselfthrough the lens of a racist white society. He meant that to grow up black in Americais to be …
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Phillis Wheatley Peters (c. 1753 – December 5, 1784) Thy various works, imperial queen, we see, How bright their forms! how deck'd with pomp by thee!Thy wond'rous acts in beauteous order stand,And all attest how potent is thine hand. From Helicon's refulgent heights attend,Ye sacred choir, and my attempts befriend:To tell her glories with …
Lisel Mueller (February 8, 1924 – February 21, 2020) How swiftly the strained honeyof afternoon lightflows into darknessand the closed bud shrugs offits special mysteryin order to break into blossom:as if what exists, existsso that it can be lostand become precious.
Transformation literally means going beyond your form. — Wayne Dyer
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
