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 …
Sarah Browning – The Fifth Fact
Sarah Browning For Ben’s project he must research five factsabout his African-American hero and write themon poster board. He chooses Harriet Tubman,whose five facts are: Her father’s name was Ben.Her mother’s name was Old Rit. She was bornin 1820 and died in 1913. She was born in Marylandand died in New York.Ben asks for adviceabout …
Jane Hirshfield – Optimism
Jane Hirshfield (February 24, 1953 -) More and more I have come to admire resilience.Not the simple resistance of a pillow, whose foamreturns over and over to the same shape, but the sinuoustenacity of a tree: finding the light newly blocked on one side,it turns in another. A blind intelligence, true.But out of such persistence …
Amanda Gorman – Chorus of the Captains
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 …
Joy Harjo – Praise the Rain
Joy Harjo (May 09, 1951 -) Praise the rain; the seagull diveThe curl of plant, the raven talk—Praise the hurt, the house slackThe stand of trees, the dignity—Praise the dark, the moon cradleThe sky fall, the bear sleep—Praise the mist, the warrior nameThe earth eclipse, the fired leap—Praise the backwards, upward skyThe baby cry, the …
Tadeusz Różewicz – In the Midst of Life
Tadeusz Różewicz (October 09, 1921 – April 24, 2014) “In the Midst of LifeAfter the end of the worldafter deathI found myself in the midst of lifecreating myselfbuilding lifepeople animals landscapes this is a table I saidthis is a tableon the table is bread a knifea knife is to cut breadpeople live on bread man must be …
Maya Angelou – The Pulse Of Morning
Maya Angelou (April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014) A Rock, A River, A TreeHosts to species long since departed,Mark the mastodon.The dinosaur, who left dry tokensOf their sojourn hereOn our planet floor,Any broad alarm of their of their hastening doomIs lost in the gloom of dust and ages.But today, the Rock cries out to …
Joy Harjo – Eagle Poem
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 …
Jane Hirshfield – Mountainal
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, …
William Blake – The Schoolboy
William Blake (November 28, 1757 – August 12, 1827) I love to rise in a summer morn,When the birds sing on every tree;The distant huntsman winds his horn,And the skylark sings with me:Oh, what sweet company! But to go to school in a summer morn, —O it drives all joy away;Under a cruel eye outworn,The …
David Baker – We Are Gone
David Baker (December 27, 1954 -) Even the night cooling down is slick with heat.Even the sheet we share like a humming skin.From three stories up the sounds of the street,drinkers at the curb, a wet hiss of dry tires,is a rhythm through our box fan, like panting.When we sleep it is piecemeal until morning. …
JR Solonche – The Clouds
JR Solonche Nothing disturbs them,the clouds, stoics,philosophers, sages,graybeards of the sky.Not even this jet,that streaks throughthem, that shredsthe silence likea silver shark,disturbs their slow,slow, mindful walk on air.
Billy Collins – As If To Demonstrate An Eclipse
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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Nikki Giovanni – Resignation
Yolande Cornelia Nikki Giovanni Jr (June 7, 1943) I love you because the Earth turns round the sun because the North wind blows north sometimes because the Pope is Catholic and most Rabbis Jewish because the winters flow into springs and the air clears after a storm because only my love for …
Gabrielle Otero – Self-Portrait, Despite What They Say
Gabrielle Otero Being a Latina from the Bronx means:I am everybody and nobody at the same time. I know the soundwaves of the train tracks better than my father’s voice.I look like I should speak Spanish but nobody ever taught me.I look like you should want to bend me over but you try not tothink …
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Phillis Wheatley – Imagination
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 …
Philip Bryant – Miles: Prince Of Darkness
Philip Bryant I remember my father's storiesabout him being cold, fitful,reproachful, surly, rude, cruel,unbearable, spiteful, arrogant, hateful.But then he'd playSome Day My Prince Will Comein a swirl of bright spring colorsthat come after a heavy rainmaking the world anew againand like the sometimes-tyrannical kingwho is truly repentant of his transgressionssteps out onto the balconyto greet …
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Elizabeth Alexander – Butter
Elizabeth Alexander (May 30, 1962 -) My mother loves butter more than I do,more than anyone. She pulls chunks offthe stick and eats it plain, explainingcream spun around into butter! Growing upwe ate turkey cutlets sauteed in lemonand butter, butter and cheese on green noodles,butter melting in small pools in the heartsof Yorkshire puddings, butter …
Rabindranath Tagore – Joy
Rabindranath Tagore (May 07, 1861 - August 07, 1941) I slept and dreamtthat life was joy.I awoke and sawthat life was duty.I worked — and behold,duty was joy.
Amanda Gorman – The Hill We Climb
Amanda Gorman When day comes we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade? The loss we carry, a sea we must wade. We’ve braved the belly of the beast. We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace. In the norms and notions of what just is isn’t always justice. And yet, the …
Laura Foley – One Day
Laura Foley I didn't read the news.I raked a rainbowof pungent autumn leaves,played abroad with happy dogs,held my granddaughter in my arms,and sat beneath an amiable maple,attentive to current events.
Henri Cole – Daffodils
Henri Cole (1956 -) Sometimes I arrive with my buds closed,and I am mistaken for scallions,but if you cut a half inch from my stemsand put me in water, I open up and releaseyellow dust from my petal cups,like talcum sprinkled on her shouldersafter she bathes and swallows herthird tranquillizer to erase herself,the sedative piercing …
James Broughton – Wondrous The Merge
James Broughton (November 10, 1913 – May 17, 1999) Had my soul tottered off to sleeptaking my potency with it?Had they both retired before I couldleaving me a classroom somnambulist?Why else should I at sixty-onefeel myself shriveling into fadeout?Then on a cold seminar Mondayin walked an unannounced redeemerdisguised as a taciturn studentBrisk and resolute in …
Eunice Odio – W.C.W.
Eunice Odio (October 18, 1919 – March 23, 1974) The whole arboris contained in him.It is his will,an entranceto the clear designof the waters.Heavenly musicwakes in his ear.(When God stirred,the moon never variednor the wind,a rumorof approaching dawn,stillness becomeGod’s silence.)When I saw himof an afternoon—an island facein the air—when I came upon himfrom within,the sprouting …
Melissa Andres – Arrival
Melissa Andres The corners of the Terracotta tilescut my mother’s feet when she walkedto the kitchen to eat the most exotic fruitshe had ever imagined—tree-ripe peaches packedwith juices in a can—and not the guavashe always melted for the pastries.My mother then placed the empty canon the stove, added water and beganto cook the rice we …
Rebecca Elson – Antidotes To The Fear Of Death
Rebecca Anne Wood Elson (January 02, 1960 – May 19, 1999) Sometimes as an antidoteTo fear of death,I eat the starsThose nights, lying on my back,I suck them from the quenching darkTil they are all, all inside me,Pepper hot and sharp.Sometimes, instead, I stir myselfInto a universe still young,Still warm as blood:No outer space, just …
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Emily Dickinson – I Heard A Fly Buzz…
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) I heard a Fly buzz—when I died—The Stillness in the RoomWas like the Stillness in the Air—Between the Heaves of Storm—The Eyes around—had wrung them dry—And Breaths were gathering firmFor that last Onset—when the KingBe witnessed—in the Room—I willed my Keepsakes—signed awayWhat portions of me …
William Stafford – Time for Serenity, Anyone?
William Edgar Stafford (January 17, 1914 – August 28, 1993) I like to live in the sound of water,in the feel of mountain air. A sharpreminder hits me: this world still is alive;it stretches out there shivering toward its owncreation, and I'm part of it. Even my breathingenters into the elaborate give-and-take,this bowing to sun …
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Jabari Asim – Some Call It God
Jabari Asim (August 11, 1962 -) I choose Rhythm,the beginning as motion,black Funk shaping itselfin the time before time,dark, glorious and nimble as a spermsparkling its way into the greatest of grooves,conjuring worlds from dust and storm and primordial soup. I accept the Funk as my holy savior,Funk so high you can’t get over it,so …
Denise Levertov — The Secret
Priscilla Denise Levertov (October 24, 1923 – December 20, 1997) Two girls discoverthe secret of lifein a sudden line ofpoetry.I who don’t know thesecret wrotethe line. Theytold me(through a third person)they had found itbut not what it wasnot evenwhat line it was. No doubtby now, more than a weeklater, they have forgottenthe secret,the line, the …
Jane Hirshfield – I Wanted To Be Surprised
Jane Hirshfield (February 24, 1953 -) To such a request, the world is obliging.Just in the past week, a rotund porcupine,who seemed equally startled by me.The man who swallowed a tiny microphoneto record the sounds of his body,not considering beforehand how he might remove it.A cabbage and mustard sandwich on marbled bread.How easily the large …
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Kahlil Gibran — Defeat
Kahlil Gibran (January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931) Defeat, my Defeat, my solitude and my aloofness;You are dearer to me than a thousand triumphs,And sweeter to my heart than all world-glory. Defeat, my Defeat, my self-knowledge and my defiance,Through you I know that I am yet young and swift of footAnd not to be …
Emma Lazarus – The New Colossus
Emma Lazarus (July 22, 1849 – November 19, 1887) Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,With conquering limbs astride from land to land;Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall standA mighty woman with a torch, whose flameIs the imprisoned lightning, and her nameMother of Exiles. From her beacon-handGlows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes commandThe …
