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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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 …
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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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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
James Harrison (December 11, 1937 – March 26, 2016) Night and dayseize the day, also the night —a handful of water to grasp.The moon shines off the mountainsnow where grizzlies look for a placefor the winter’s sleep and birth.I just ate the year’s last tomatoin the year’s fatal whirl.This is mid-October, apple time.I picked them …
Margaret Hasse After being a student, then an hourly worker,I became a career girl and earned real money.I left behind a provisional furnished apartmentwith its stained curtains, butt-burned tableand Goodwill mattress I was never sure about. Alone I bought a house with an attic,a basement and a skirt of flowers.Freely I spent on white paint, …
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 …
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 …
Skye Jackson at the parades, everyone wants to touch my hair. on the corner of st charles and marengo, i am cold & smashed & puffy AF when two white women try to convince me that they love my hair no they really really do they say because it is soblack and thick and curly and soaking up all of thewater in …
Maria Mazziotti Gillan (March 12, 1940 -) A friend sends me a picture of herselffrom the 70s—bell bottoms, platform shoesa patterned button down shirt,hair puffed up from a perm. I can see the outline of the person she is nowand she reminds me of myself in the 70s—married for eight years to a manI knew …
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Gregory Djanikian There's something to be said for banality,the way it keeps everything on a level plane,one cliché blithely following anotherlike cows heading toward the pasture. How lovely sometimes not to thinkabout Russian Futurism, or the second lawof thermodynamics, or how thinking itselfrequires some thoughtfulness. I'd like to ask if Machiavelliever owned a dog named …
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 …
Michael Waters (November 23, 1949 -) Seth wrestled the Camaro with one fist & poppedHandfuls of pills while the pistol rode my thigh.I shouted Is it loaded? over Grandmaster Flash.Amateur thug, he slipped the piece into his boot& swaggered like a bouncer into the funeral home. Sunglass’d still & jittery, he scanned the room,Swept past uncles …
Kim Addonizio (July 31, 1954 -) One day everything that’s over or deadwill come back, oil painting & God,chivalry & the kings (even the madold rotters, why not, while the headsof the plotters are removedfrom their iron spikes & carefully gluedon again)— why not believe in the miracle— plaidhas already come back so why not …
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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 …
Barbara Quick I learned how to make Nana’s chicken soupby shadowing her steps in the kitchen,taking notes on a white paper napkin.A cauldron of sorts is required, as well as aonce-animate chicken submerged abovethe stove’s blue flame.“You put in the onions,” Nana said,her Russian accent as fresh as the breezemust have felt on her face …
Diane Ackerman (October 07, 1948 -) Especially in early spring,when the sun offers a thin treacle of warmth,I love to sit outdoorsand eat sense-ravishing apricots.Born on sun-drenched trees in Morocco,the apricots have flown the Atlanticlike small comets, and I can tastebroiling North Africa in their flesh.Somewhere between a peach and a prayer,they taste of well …
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Eleanor Channell If you weren’t here, I’d fear the surgeof surf. I’d watch the moon wax and wane,feel the constant pulling of tides, the urgeto drown myself in pity and booze, to explain my life as “Cape Disappointment” with hard luckspinning and winning souls like mine, a jettyof riprap pointing to my faults, the muckof my …
Kenneth Ronkowitz A star chart tells methat the star I am seeing tonightis 500 light years away.It may have died 499 years ago,and I am still seeing its last light.Stars are born, they live, and they die.What is the light that remains when we leave?If I die after writing this poem, is this my light,and …
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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
