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
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 …
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 …
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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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 …
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 …
How many of us were fingered?A soft thing with a hole in it,a thing that won’t tell, that can’t.I forget how many times I was broken, a soft thing with a hole in it.Some remember, grateful it wasn’t worse;I forget how many times I was broken.Someone faceless rolled on me like a horse. Some remember, …
Claudia Rankine (September 15, 1963 -) There was a time I could say no one I knew well had died. This is not to suggest no one died. When I was eight my mother became pregnant. She went to the hospital to give birth and returned without the baby. Where's the baby? we asked. Did …
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Marie Howe The soul has a story that has a shape that almost no onesees. No, no one ever does. All those kisses, The bedroom chair that rocked with me in it, his bodyhis body and his and his and his. More, I said, moreand more and more. . . . What has it come to?Like …
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 …
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 …
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 Moulton Charlie Daniels is blaring from the jukeboxas she strolls into the bar, surveys tonight’sselection, then sidles up to the guy on the end.He admires her ass, curls his arm around her waist.“Hammer’s the name,” he says in a loud voice.She looks him over: alligator boots, green cords,plaid flannel shirt unbuttoned to show offhis …
Sarah P. Strong At first we did not know what was happening.The tea on the porch table cooled several degreeswhile she stood up, clutchedthe scrollwork back of the chair. The lineson her face arranged themselves in a waywe’d never seen, her nostrils flaredand the bird in the tree behind her stoppedsinging. Someone, not me, tooka …
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Tracy K. Smith (April 16, 1972 -) Being called all manner of thingsfrom the Dictionary of Shame—not English, not words, not heard,but worn, borne, carried, never spent—we feel now a largeness coming on,something passing into us. We knownot in what source it was begun, butrapt, we watch it rise through our fallen,our slain, our millions …
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Kim Addonizio (July 31, 1954 -) I want a red dress.I want it flimsy and cheap,I want it too tight, I want to wear ituntil someone tears it off me.I want it sleeveless and backless,this dress, so no one has to guesswhat's underneath. I want to walk downthe street past Thrifty's and the hardware storewith …
Anthony Dey Hoagland (November 19, 1953 – October 23, 2018) Though I have no children, sometimes I tell strangers about my daughter;I tell them about her science project for school.I tell them how badly my nerves were wreckedfrom …
Amanda Gorman (March 07, 1998 -) At the age of 5I saw how we always pick the flower swelling with the most color.The color distinguishes it from the rest, and tells us:This flower should not be left behind.But this does not happen in the case of colored girls.Our color makes hands pull back, and we, …
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Charles Simic (May 9, 1938 -) The woman I love is a saintWho deserves to havePeople falling on their kneesBefore her in the streetAsking for her blessing.Instead, here she is on the floor,Hitting a mouse with a shoeAs tears run down her face.
Ann Tweedy When my son was born, his immense needand my ability to answer it were like the two hemispheresof the world. Sometimes I was afraid and bewilderedyet comforted in knowing what my purpose was.When he slept in my bed between bouts of nursing,I’d throw my arm lightly across his chestlike a cave-dwelling woman making …
Theodore J. Kooser (April 25, 1939 -) She is being helped toward the open doorthat leads to the examining roomsby two young women I take to be her sisters.Each bends to the weight of an armand steps with the straight, tough bearingof courage. At what must seem to bea great distance, a nurse holds the …
Camille Rankine What have ITo say in my wrong tongueOf what is gone To know something isLost but what You have forgotten whatYou long forgot If I amWhat survives I am here but I am notMuch of anything at all To be what’s leftAnd all the rest scooped outAnd dropped into the sea My fleshForming …
Rainer Maria Rilke (December 04, 1875 – December 29, 1926) The Duino Elegies are among my favorite mystical, existential love poems. I hold Rilke in the same ethereal realm as Rumi and Blake. To ease your enjoyment of Rilke’s creation written over a ten year period, I present them as individual verses, one each day …
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Rainer Maria Rilke (December 04, 1875 – December 29, 1926) The Duino Elegies are among my favorite mystical, existential love poems. I hold Rilke in the same ethereal realm as Rumi and Blake. To ease your enjoyment of Rilke’s creation written over a ten year period, I present them as individual verses, one each day …
Continue reading "Rainer Maria Rilke – The Duino Elegies VI"
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 …
Dorianne Laux (January 10, 1952 -) In Alaska I slept in a bed on stilts, one armpressed against the ice-feathered window,the heat on high, sweat darkening the collarof my cotton thermals. I worked hard to buy that bed,hiked toward it when the men in the boothswere finished crushing hundred-dollar billsinto my hand, pitchers of beer …
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 …
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 …
Alison Luterman Some girls can’t help it; they are lit sparklers,hot-blooded, half naked in the depths of winter,tagging moving trains with the bright insignia of theirfury.I’ve seen their inked torsos: falcons, swans, meteorshowers.And shadowed their secret rendezvous,walking and flying all night over paths traced like veinsthrough the deep body of the forestwhere they are trying …
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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Jasmin Roberts My grandmother will tell you thatshe does not like white people,does not look them in the eye. W.E.B. Du Bois coined the term double consciousness in 1903.It refers to the psychological experience of viewing oneselfthrough the lens of a racist white society. He meant that to grow up black in Americais to be …
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Barbara Lydecker Crane Portrait painting, so long out of fashion,was all I did. Not by commission—I’d aska friend whose face was lined by life and passionto sit. Then I’d distort a bit: a maskwould simplify and heighten their emotion.This Harlem neighbor’s eyes are spelling fearas she holds her baby tightly with devotionand protection from who …
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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
