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
Walter Everette Hawkins Ask me why I love you, dear,And I will ask the roseWhy it loves the dews of SpringAt the Winter’s close;Why the blossoms’ nectared sweetsLoved by questing bee,—I will gladly answer you,If they answer me. Ask me why I love you, dear,And I will ask the flowerWhy it loves the Summer sun,Or …
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Tess Gallagher (July 21, 1943 -) We had our heads downbaiting hooks—three wild salmonalready turned back that morningfor the in-season hatchery silversnow out there somewherecounting their luck—whenunder our small boat the seagave a roll like a giant turning overin sleep, lifting us so high I thoughtan ocean liner or freighter hadslipped up on us, the …
Walt Whitman (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) On the beach at night alone,As the old mother sways her to and fro singing her husky song,As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of the clef of the universes and of the future.A vast similitude interlocks all,All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, …
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Red Hawk When I was a boy, the Varsity Theaterwas a mile from our house. Saturdayswe were allowed to walk there, and for a dimewe got a cowboy double-feature and a long-running serial, which involvedan incredibly stupid, weak and helplessbut beautiful woman, upon whomunimaginable indignities and cruelties were enacted by darkly evil men with mustaches.Week …
Stephen Dunn (June 24, 1939 -) Why you need to have oneis not much more mysterious thanwhy you don’t say what you thinkat the birth of an ugly baby.Or, you’ve just made loveand feel you’d rather have beenin a dark booth where your partnerwas nodding, whispering yes, yes,you’re brilliant. The secret lifebegins early, is kept …
Regina Spektor (February 18, 1980 -) (When the lecturer’s shirt matches the painting on the wall)He stands there speaking without loveOf theories where, in the democracyOf this universe, or that,There could be legislatorsWho ordain trajectories for falling bodies,Where all things must be dreamed with indifference,And purpose is a momentary silhouetteBacklit by a blue anthropic flash,A …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Theodore J. Kooser (April 25, 1939) A young woman in a wheelchair,wearing a black nylon poncho spattered with rain,is pushing herself through the morning.You have seen how pianistssometimes bend forward to strike the keys,then lift their hands, draw back to rest,then lean again to strike just as the chord fades.Such is the way this womanstrikes …
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 …
Marilyn Nelson (April 26, 1946 -) In my navy shirtwaist dress and three-inch heels,my pearl clip-ons and newly red-rinsed curls,I smoothed on lipstick, lipstick-marked my girls,saluted and held thumbs-up to my darling Mel,and drove myself to school for the first day.Over the schoolyard a silver lozengedissolved into the morning’s blue cauldron.Enter twenty seven-year-old white children.Look, …
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 …
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.
Jim Whiteside I held the fruit the way I might have helda feather, turning it to view each side.I loved the story of the fig wasp, Agaonidae, how in each fig’s centerwas a wingless and silent creature, disintegrated,eaten. Led by food to become food. This was when I still felt whole ownershipof myself, before any …
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 …
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.
Joyce Sutphen (August 10, 1949 -) The music begins—string bass and drums,then saxophoneand a piano.The steps go like this:slow, slow, quick-quick, slow.For now, your partneris the moon, andjust for this night your hairis black and full of stars.The melody is steady asrain, sweet as birdsong—aa little somethingyou will carry in your earwhen you leave usfor …
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (August 14, 1802 – October 15, 1838) Aye, here, dear love, is just a home, Like what our home should be;A home of peace—a home of love— As made for thee and me. A cottage with its roof of thatch, Its porch of the red rose,Its white walls hidden by the wreath …
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.
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 …
Kim Addonizio (July 31, 1954 -) I spent an entire day at my desk writingvapid effluvia like I’m so sick of writingpages of drivel, not feeling like a writerat all even though “A writer writesand doesn’t just talk about writing”was drilled into me by a writing instructor years ago. “Writingbegets writing”was another lesson I learned …
Walt Whitman (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) When I heard the learn’d astronomer,When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,How soon unaccountable I …
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Eavan Frances Boland (September 24, 1944 – April 27, 2020) She loved silver, she loved gold,my mother. She spoke about the influenceof metals, the congruence of atoms,the art classes where she learnedthese things: think of itshe would say as she told meto gild any surface a master craftsmanhad to meld gold with mercury,had to heat …
Lisel Mueller (February 8, 1924–February 21, 2020) In Sleeping Beauty’s castlethe clock strikes one hundred yearsand the girl in the tower returns to the world.So do the servants in the kitchen,who don’t even rub their eyes.The cook’s right hand, liftedan exact century ago,completes its downward arcto the kitchen boy’s left ear;the boy’s tensed vocal cordsfinally …
Billy Collins (March 22, 1941 -) Not long after we had sat down to dinner at a long table in a restaurant in Chicago and were deeply engrossed in the heavy menus, one of us—a bearded man with a colorful tie— asked if any one of us had ever considered applying the paradoxes of Zeno …
Stephen Dunn (June 24, 1939 -) It has something to do with ugliness, even more, perhaps, with aggression, but horseflies inspire no affection, even though they’re superb pilots. Maybe because once they were squirmy, furry things, butterflies seem content with their sudden beauty, no interest in getting anywhere fast. The small brown bird outside my …
my father is a retired magician which accounts for my irregular behavior everythin comes outta magic hats or bottles wit no bottoms & parakeets are as easy to get as a couple a rabbits or 3 fifty cent pieces/ 1958 my daddy retired from magic & took up another trade cuz this friend of mine …
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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
