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
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 …
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, …
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 …
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 …
Victoria Chang The Blue Dress—died on August 6, 2015, along with the little blue flowers, all silent. Once the petals looked up. Now small pieces of dust. I wonder whether they burned the dress or just the body? I wonder who lifted her up into the fire? I wonder if her hair brushed his cheek …
Dawn Lundy Martin They will tell you that I was sick, that I was a drug addict. They will tell you I died a natural death. Sometimes young people just die, they will say, we don’t know why. They will say I was lazy, that I could not work because of disease and just general …
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Anna Andreyevna Gorenko (June 11, 1889 – 05, March 1966) better known by the pen name Anna Akhmatova Not under foreign skiesNor under foreign wings protected -I shared all this with my own peopleThere, where misfortune had abandoned us.[1961] INSTEAD OF A PREFACE During the frightening years of the Yezhov terror, Ispent seventeen months waiting …
Ha Jin (February 21, 1956 -) I sing of an old landwhere the gods have taken shelter underground,where the human idols eat human sacrifice,where hatred runs the business of philanthropy,where blazing dragons eclipse the wronged ghosts,where silence and smiles are the trace of wisdom,where words imitate spears and swords,where truth is always a bloody legend. I …
Naomi Shihab Nye (March 12, 1952 -) Before you know what kindness really isyou must lose things,feel the future dissolve in a momentlike salt in a weakened broth.What you held in your hand,what you counted and carefully saved,all this must go so you knowhow desolate the landscape can bebetween the regions of kindness.How you ride …
Alfred Tennyson (August 06, 1809 – October 06, 1892) For Arthur Hallam Dark house, by which once more I standHere in the long unlovely street,Doors, where my heart was used to beatSo quickly, waiting for a hand, A hand that can be clasp’d no more—Behold me, for I cannot sleep,And like a guilty thing I …
Louis Jenkins (October 28, 1942 - December 21, 2019) I'm out of it these days. I guess I have less interest inkeeping up to date on what's happening. I don't knowthe names of most of the current movie stars and have notseen their movies. Same for the music scene. I have notread what everyone is …
James Cushing I know a man who carries a corpse on his shoulders.Yesterday, at sunset, I thought I sawa lump of what had been a foot, or a smear of whatmaybe was a face, just to the side of my friend’s pant legdown by the unshined toes of his brown saddle shoes.It was the dead, …
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Alexandra Umlas That night, the clouds roll in,as if on a whim, just at the momentyou decide to take the dog you rescuedoutside to pee—and you’ve discoveredhow the dog is scared of the rain,the wind shattering the stillnessof the trees, how the dog won’t move,not even an inch, but stands solidly,his four legs statued to …
Ted Kooser (April 25, 1939 -) What once was meant to be a statement—a dripping dagger held in the fistof a shuddering heart—is now just a bruiseon a bony old shoulder, the spotwhere vanity once punched him hardand the ache lingered on. He looks likesomeone you had to reckon with,strong as a stallion, fast and …
Edna St. Vincent Millay (February 22, 1892 – October 19, 1950) Time does not bring relief; you all have lied Who told me time would ease me of my pain! I miss him in the weeping of the rain; I want him at the shrinking of the tide;The old snows melt from every mountain-side, And last year’s leaves are …
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[Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) I measure every Grief I meetWith narrow, probing, Eyes —I wonder if It weighs like Mine —Or has an Easier size.I wonder if They bore it long —Or did it just begin —I could not tell the Date of Mine —It feels so old a pain …
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Daniel Arias Gómez (April 01, 1972 -) Tío, you learn there’s alwaysa border—I imagine a poor family in Jocotepec takes youin. You work as a gardener at the clubacross the lake where rich peoplevacation. The town’s children runshoeless on the dirt roads, stareat the people on the other sidesun-tanning on the decks of theirboats, riding …
Continue reading "Daniel Arias Gómez – Cathedrals: Ode To A Deported Uncle"
William Carlos Williams (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963) They call me and I go.It is a frozen roadpast midnight, a dustof snow caughtin the rigid wheeltracks.The door opens.I smile, enter andshake off the cold.Here is a great womanon her side in the bed.She is sick,perhaps vomiting,perhaps laboringto give birth toa tenth child. Joy! …
Paul Laurence Dunbar (June 27, 1872 – February 9, 1906) We wear the mask that grins and lies,It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—This debt we pay to human guile;With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,And mouth with myriad subtleties. Why should the world be over-wise,In counting all our tears and sighs?Nay, let them …
Belén Atienza Give me back the hours you swore mine foreverand take away this grief hidden in my wardrobeand when you remember me, do not whisper my namenor think of me as yours, though yours you know I was. I shall be asleep and forget the scent of youI shall awaken alone, as then, before, …
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Anna Andreyevna Gorenko (June 11, 1889 – March 05, 1966) better known by the pen name Anna Akhmatova We aged a hundred years and this descendedIn just one hour, as at a stroke.The summer had been brief and now was ended;The body of the ploughed plains lay in smoke. The hushed road burst in colors …
Continue reading "Anna Akhmatova – In Memoriam, July 19, 1914"
Alison Hazle No one calls me that anymore. But that long Y,it licks the space. I longfor that Y in my name. Am I still young? These other dykesare young, wetfrom their clamshellwombs. I am dry having smoked and smokedand not slept and been notwell for quite a while. But I am a dyke, I …
Edna St. Vincent Millay (February 22, 1892 – October 19, 1950) What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,I have forgotten, and what arms have lainUnder my head till morning; but the rainIs full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sighUpon the glass and listen for reply,And in my heart there stirs a …
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Meena Alexander (February 17, 1951 – November 21, 2018) In a crumpled shirt (so casual for a god)Bow tucked loosely under an arm still jittery from battleHe balanced himself on a flat boat painted black.Each wave as I kneel closer a migrant flagA tongue with syllables no script can catch.The many births you have passed …
James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1901[1] – May 22, 1967) Way Down South in Dixie(Break the heart of me)They hung my black young loverTo a cross roads tree. Way Down South in Dixie(Bruised body high in air)I asked the white Lord JesusWhat was the use of prayer. Way Down South in Dixie(Break the heart …
Natasha Trethewey (April 26, 1966 -) We tell the story every year—how we peered from the windows, shades drawn—though nothing really happened,the charred grass now green again. We peered from the windows, shades drawn,at the cross trussed like a Christmas tree,the charred grass still green. Thenwe darkened our rooms, lit the hurricane lamps. At the …
Ellen Bass (June 16, 1947 -) to love life, to love it evenwhen you have no stomach for itand everything you've held dearcrumbles like burnt paper in your hands,your throat filled with the silt of it.When grief sits with you, its tropical heatthickening the air, heavy as watermore fit for gills than lungs;when grief weights …
Eavan Aisling Boland (September 24 1944 – April 27, 2020) Back from Dublin, my grandmotherfinds an eviction notice on her door.Now she is in court for rent arrears.The lawyers are amused.These are the Petty Sessions,this is Drogheda, this is the Bank Holiday.Their comments fill a column in the newspaper.Was the notice well served?Was it served …
Kristene Kaye Brown I too have had my hands full of what keeps mecontained, a vastness softened by restraintand made more terriblebecause of it. I think it’s time we talkabout the safety of distance,how the tire tread of rush hour trafficsounds like something being patiently worn down,how the cars parked along the streetnever seem to …
Czesław Miłosz (June 30, 1911 – August 14, 2004) Of those at the table in the caféwhere on winter noons a garden of frost glittered on windowpanesI alone survived.I could go in there if I wanted toand drumming my fingers in a chilly voidconvoke shadows. With disbelief I touch the cold marble,with disbelief I touch …
Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origins from emotion recollected in tranquility. The emotion is contemplated till, by a species of reaction, the tranquility gradually disappears. William Wordsworth (April 07, 1770 - April 23, 1850) Surprised by joy—impatient as the WindI turned to share the transport—Oh! with whomBut Thee, long …
Elizabeth Bishop (February 8, 1911 - October 6, 1979) Although it is a cold evening,down by one of the fishhousesan old man sits netting,his net, in the gloaming almost invisible,a dark purple-brown,and his shuttle worn and polished.The air smells so strong of codfishit makes one’s nose run and one’s eyes water.The five fishhouses have steeply …
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
