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
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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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 …
Richard Cecil Beyond the waves that lap the sandy beachesmy balcony looks down on, there must beno distant shoreline, only open seathat stretches toward the west until it reachesthe sky to make an infinite horizon,which the sun sinks into with a hissof surf as afternoon and evening kissgood night and sky turns on its constellations. …
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 …
Ross Gay (August 01, 1974 -) Friends I am here to modestly reportseeing in an orchardin my towna goldfinch kissinga sunfloweragain and againdangling upside downby its tiny clawssteadying itself by snapping openlike an old-timey fanits wingsagain and again,until, swooning, it tumbled offand swooped back to the very same perch,where the sunflower curled its giantswirling of …
Galway Mills Kinnell (February 1, 1927 – October 28, 2014) I open my eyes to see how the nightis progressing. The clock glows green,the light of the last-quarter moonshines up off the snow into our bedroom.Her portion of our oceanic duvetlies completely flat. The wordsof the shepherd in Tristan, "Wasteand empty, the sea," come back …
Billy Collins (March 22, 1941 -) The way the dog trots out the front doorevery morningwithout a hat or an umbrella,without any moneyor the keys to her doghousenever fails to fill the saucer of my heartwith milky admiration.Who provides a finer exampleof a life without encumbrance—Thoreau in his curtainless hutwith a single plate, a single …
Jane Hirshfield (February 24, 1953 -) I stop the car along the pasture edge,gather up bags of corncobs from the back,and get out.Two whistles, one for each,and familiar sounds draw close in darkness—cadence of hoof on hardened bottomland,twinned blowing of air through nostrils curious, flared.They come deepened and muscular movementsconjured out of sleep: each small …
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 …
Natalie Diaz (September 04, 1978 -) He sat cross-legged, weeping on the stepswhen Mom unlocked and opened the front door. O God, he said. O God. He wants to kill me, Mom. When Mom unlocked and opened the front doorat 3 a.m., she was in her nightgown, Dad was asleep. He wants to kill me, …
Lisel Mueller (February 8, 1924 – February 21, 2020) Let it come down: these thicknesses of airhave long enough walled love away from love;stillness has hardened until words despairof their high leaps and kisses shut themselvesback into wishing. Crippled lovers lieagainst a weather which holds out on them,waiting, awaiting some shrill sign, some cry,some screaming …
Jimmy Pappas Not because she wanted him to let her go.She wanted to stay on her bed. Not because shewanted him to remove his arms from around her.She wanted them to remain. Not because shewanted him to go away. She wanted him to be there. But because she wanted him to let her go, just …
Karen Benke Each day he left our shallow bed at sunrise.All that remained: the black snake lie.Yes, he remembered his watch, the cream for his coffee.He unloaded the dishwasher, carried the recycling to the curb.How can you say I’m not here for you?The house creaked quiet.The woman who was me curled under the stiff sheet …
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 …
Octavio Paz Lozano (March 31, 1914 – April 19, 1998) 1There is an uncertain territorybetween night and day.It is neither light nor shadow: it is time.An hour, a precarious pause,a darkening page,a page …
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Márton Kálasz (August 09, 1934 -) I don’t see my mother dancing—in my thoughts she still trims vinessprayed blue with copper sulfatefor her two bags of wheat, eight bushels rye.I don’t know if her young facewas lovely, if the other tenantsadmired her dragonfly form,or if my blonde father tethered his horse onlyat our cabin on …
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 …
Louise Glück (April 22, 1943 -) Leo Cruz makes the most beautiful white bowls;I think I must get some to youbut how is the questionin these timesHe is teaching methe names of the desert grasses;I have a booksince to see the grasses is impossibleLeo thinks the things man makesare more beautifulthan what exists in natureand …
Kim Addonizio (July 31, 1954 -) They hang around, hitting on your friendsor else you never hear from them again.They call when they're drunk, or finally get sober, they're passing through town and want dinner,they take your hand across the table, kiss youwhen you come back from the bathroom. They were your loves, your victims,your …
Hafizah Geter My father, who spends most of his days paintingpictures, says coming home to my motherstroking out was like walking in on an affair.Bending, he demonstrates howan aneurism hugged my motherto her knees. A man alwaysat his easel, my father tries to draw clarityfrom obfuscation. Every retelling:bluer, then redder. His memorya primary color saturatingthe …
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 …
Tracy K Smith (April 16, 1972 -) Was he mute a while,or all tears. Did he raisehis hands to his ears sohe could scream screamscream. Did he eat onlywith his fists. Did he eatas if something inside of himwould never be fed. Did hearch his back and hammerhis heels into the floorthe minute there wassomething …
Walt Whitman (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) Whoever you are holding me now in hand,Without one thing all will be useless,I give you fair warning before you attempt me further,I am not what you supposed, but far different. Who is he that would become my follower?Who would sign himself a candidate for my …
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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 …
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 …
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 …
Naomi Long Madgett (July 5, 1923 – November 4, 2020) How good it is to let our memory wanderand travel back across the fruitful yearsto count how many miles we’ve walked together!On pinnacles of dreams, through vales of tears,along the level ground of every daywe’ve made our way.In sickness and in health, in joy and …
William Butler Yeats (June 13, 1865 – January 28, 1939) Down by the salley gardensmy love and I did meet;She passed the salley gardenswith little snow-white feet.She bid me take love easy,as the leaves grow on the tree;But I, being young and foolish,with her would not agree.In a field by the rivermy love and I …
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Rafaella Del Bourgo The frigid waters of the Huon Rivertrudge along sodden banks,muscling aside grasses, and scolding saplings.Twin swans, crayon black with crimson beaks,hiss and feint at a six-foot snaketricked out in beige and chartreuse.The birds take off, slice the sky;the river licks the scallop pattern on its surface. My house, too, is cold, a …
Marge Piercy (March 31, 1936 -) What can they doto you? Whatever they want.They can set you up, they canbust you, they can breakyour fingers, they canburn your brain with electricity,blur you with drugs till youcan't walk, can't remember, they cantake your child, wall upyour lover. They can do anythingyou can't stop themfrom doing. How …
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 …
Marge Piercy (March 31, 1936 -) We cannot have monogrammed towelsor matches with our names on. We cannothave children. We cannot share jointtax returns. We don’t have a past.Our future is a striped unicorn, fragile,shy, the first of a newspecies born without kindto hostile kin. We can work togethersnarling and giggling and grunting.Every few years …
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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
