I post a lot of queer poetry, which should really come as no surprise to anyone. I also buy a lot of poetry books, especially in and around the month of April; when we were in New York last year, I bought Stephanie Burt's 2025 anthology Super Gay Poems, which is really fantastic and highly recommended for both the brilliant essays about each poem and the poems themselves. It also gives me a lot of personal joy because it doesn't have a single poem in it that I've already posted (in 19 years!!), which is so cool and exciting—although there are a handful of poems I've read in the anthology, and several poets I've heard of (or posted other work by), I really love the part of doing this each year where I get to learn and discover new-to-me poems and poets.
Since I skipped yesterday, I am going to indulgently post two poems from the anthology which are completely unrelated, except that they both haunt me (and also both have great enjambment).
Having caught me, neither fish nor flesh,
you slip me back into the sea.
But I, with the feel of your hands fresh
on my wet skin, follow you under
water. Slowly, I learn to breathe in
the alien air of your being, to walk
on glass, to swallow my words and sing
unheard. Your kindness is everything.
I am the slave of the lamp you light.
You wish me to stand on my feet.
I forget to swim,
choose, free as the wave that brought me
ashore, to abandon home,
to become foam.
—Ruth Vanita, "Mermaid," from A Play of Light: Selected Poems, first published by Penguin New Delhi (1994) and reprinted in an updated edition by QueerInk (2021), and Stephanie Burt, Super Gay Poems: LGBTQIA+ Poetry after Stonewall (Harvard University Press, 2025). In the essay following this poem, Burt writes, "This sonnet appears here instead, because it belongs among the strongest, most elegant poems ever written in English about mermaids, and mermaids are queer through and through" (86). Abso-fucking-lutely.
*
I don't want to hurt a man, but I like to hear one beg.
Two people touch twice a month in ten hotels, and
We call it long distance. He holds down one coast.
I wander the other like any African American, Africa
With its condition and America with its condition
And black folk born in this nation content to carry
Half of each. I shoulder my share. My man flies
To touch me. Sky on our side. Sky above his world
I wish to write. Which is where I go wrong. Words
Are a sense of sound. I get smart. My mother shakes
Her head. My grandmother sighs: He ain't got no
Sense. My grandmother is dead. She lives with me.
I hear my mother shake her head over the phone.
Somebody cut the cord. We have a long distance
Relationship. I lost half of her to a stroke. God gives
To each a body. God gives every body its pains.
When pain mounts in my body, I try thinking
Of my white forefathers who hurt their black bastards
Quite legally. I hate to say it, but one pain can ease
Another. Doctors rather I take pills. My man wants me
To see a doctor. What are you when you leave your man
Wanting? What am I now that I think so fondly
Of airplanes? What's my name, whose is it, while we
Make love. My lover leaves me with words I wish
To write. Flies from one side of a nation to the outside
Of our world. I don't want the world. I only want
African sense of American sound. Him. Touching.
This body. Aware of its pains. Greetings, Earthlings.
My name is Slow And Stumbling. I come from planet
Trouble. I am here to love you uncomfortable.
—Jericho Brown, "Heart Condition," from The New Testament (Copper Canyon Press, 2014) and, of course, Stephanie Burt, Super Gay Poems: LGBTQIA+ Poetry after Stonewall (Harvard University Press, 2025). I somehow had never read any Jericho Brown before? I am now obsessed.
Showing posts with label metapoetics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label metapoetics. Show all posts
Monday, April 13, 2026
Wednesday, April 8, 2026
ask the moon
I asked my wife how many poems about the moon I was allowed to post this week, and she said "all of them?" So we may have a week or so of moon poems, for obvious reasons. Since I missed yesterday, here are two.
Isn't the moon dark too,
most of the time?
And doesn't the white page
seem unfinished
without the dark stain
of alphabets?
When God demanded light,
he didn't banish darkness.
Instead he invented
ebony and crows
and that small mole
on your left cheekbone.
Or did you mean to ask
"Why are you sad so often?"
Ask the moon.
Ask what it has witnessed.
—Linda Pastan (1932-2023), "Why Are Your Poems So Dark?" originally published in Poetry (August 2003).
*
Forgive us, we blamed you
for floods, for the flush of blood,
for men who are also wolves, even
though you could pull the tide in
by her hair, we tell everyone
we walked all over you. We
blame you for the dark, as if you had
a choice, performing just beyond
the glass, distant and adored,
near but alone, cold and unimaginable
following us home. We use you
to see our blue bodies beneath
your damp light, we let you watch,
swollen against the glass as we move
against one another like fish.
—Warsan Shire, "Bless the Moon," from Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head: Poems (Penguin Canada, 2022).
Isn't the moon dark too,
most of the time?
And doesn't the white page
seem unfinished
without the dark stain
of alphabets?
When God demanded light,
he didn't banish darkness.
Instead he invented
ebony and crows
and that small mole
on your left cheekbone.
Or did you mean to ask
"Why are you sad so often?"
Ask the moon.
Ask what it has witnessed.
—Linda Pastan (1932-2023), "Why Are Your Poems So Dark?" originally published in Poetry (August 2003).
*
Forgive us, we blamed you
for floods, for the flush of blood,
for men who are also wolves, even
though you could pull the tide in
by her hair, we tell everyone
we walked all over you. We
blame you for the dark, as if you had
a choice, performing just beyond
the glass, distant and adored,
near but alone, cold and unimaginable
following us home. We use you
to see our blue bodies beneath
your damp light, we let you watch,
swollen against the glass as we move
against one another like fish.
—Warsan Shire, "Bless the Moon," from Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head: Poems (Penguin Canada, 2022).
Monday, April 28, 2025
anti poetica
there is no poem greater than feeding someone
there is no poem wiser than kindness
there is no poem more important than being good to children
there is no poem outside love's violent potential for cruelty
there is no poem that ends grief but nurses it toward light
there is no poem that isn't jealous of song or murals or wings
there is no poem free from money's ruin
no poem in the capital nor the court
most policy rewords a devil's script
there is no poem in the law
there is no poem in the west
there is no poem in the north
poems only live south of something
meaning beneath & darkened & hot
there is no poem in the winter nor in whiteness
nor are there poems in the landlord's name
no poem to admonish the state
no poem with a key to the locks
no poem to free you
—Danez Smith, "anti poetica" from Bluff (Graywolf Press, 2024). This collection is amazing—no surprise, Danez Smith consistently fucks me up—but I read this poem on its own before reading the collection, and it's even better in context. It's worth knowing, I think, that this is the first of three poems in the collection called "anti poetica" and that there's also an "ars poetica." Other than that, no spoilers. Go read the book.
there is no poem wiser than kindness
there is no poem more important than being good to children
there is no poem outside love's violent potential for cruelty
there is no poem that ends grief but nurses it toward light
there is no poem that isn't jealous of song or murals or wings
there is no poem free from money's ruin
no poem in the capital nor the court
most policy rewords a devil's script
there is no poem in the law
there is no poem in the west
there is no poem in the north
poems only live south of something
meaning beneath & darkened & hot
there is no poem in the winter nor in whiteness
nor are there poems in the landlord's name
no poem to admonish the state
no poem with a key to the locks
no poem to free you
—Danez Smith, "anti poetica" from Bluff (Graywolf Press, 2024). This collection is amazing—no surprise, Danez Smith consistently fucks me up—but I read this poem on its own before reading the collection, and it's even better in context. It's worth knowing, I think, that this is the first of three poems in the collection called "anti poetica" and that there's also an "ars poetica." Other than that, no spoilers. Go read the book.
Friday, April 26, 2024
without a word
I couldn't decide which W. S. Merwin poem to post, so here are two, one for today and one to count for April 17. They're variations on a theme (it's a little weird to be back in Texas where it very much is already summer), and I really enjoy the way Merwin just doesn't use punctuation at all.
Late in May as the light lengthens
toward summer the young goldfinches
flutter down through the day for the first time
to find themselves among fallen petals
cradling their day's colors in the day's shadows
of the garden beside the old house
after a cold spring with no rain
not a sound comes from the empty village
as I stand eating the black cherries
from the loaded branches above me
saying to myself Remember this
—W. S. Merwin (1927-2019), "Black Cherries," from Garden Time, 2016.
*
The first hay is in and all at once
in the silent evening summer has come
knowing the place wholly the green skin
of its hidden slopes where the shadows will
never reach so far again and a few
gray hairs motionless high in the late
sunlight tell of rain before morning
and of finding the daybreak under green
water with no shadows but all still the same
still known still the known faces of summer
faces of water turning into the themselves
changing without a word into the themselves
—W. S. Merwin (1927-2019), "After the Spring," published in Poetry (June 1992).
Late in May as the light lengthens
toward summer the young goldfinches
flutter down through the day for the first time
to find themselves among fallen petals
cradling their day's colors in the day's shadows
of the garden beside the old house
after a cold spring with no rain
not a sound comes from the empty village
as I stand eating the black cherries
from the loaded branches above me
saying to myself Remember this
—W. S. Merwin (1927-2019), "Black Cherries," from Garden Time, 2016.
*
The first hay is in and all at once
in the silent evening summer has come
knowing the place wholly the green skin
of its hidden slopes where the shadows will
never reach so far again and a few
gray hairs motionless high in the late
sunlight tell of rain before morning
and of finding the daybreak under green
water with no shadows but all still the same
still known still the known faces of summer
faces of water turning into the themselves
changing without a word into the themselves
—W. S. Merwin (1927-2019), "After the Spring," published in Poetry (June 1992).
Wednesday, April 10, 2024
as we
It's been kind of a hell of a couple of days, which has included things like the power going out at 3am during a huge storm last night (we got it back eventually), my computer dying, shelling out for a new computer, not getting nearly enough sleep, several migraines, and a whole bunch of meetings with wedding vendors. I need to catch up on poetry, but I'm posting this from the new computer, which is still a work in progress (although also very shiny and beautiful), and I am very tired, so I am making my job a little easier tonight.
For a lot of reasons—including the fact that it's time-consuming and annoying to re-code in html—I don't post a lot of poetry that relies on on-the-page formatting. But every once in a while I read one that's so fucking good that I can't resist. And in this case, I am just going to link it instead of reposting it: Obligations 2 by Layli Long Soldier, from New Poets of Native Nations, 2018. It's extraordinary.
For a lot of reasons—including the fact that it's time-consuming and annoying to re-code in html—I don't post a lot of poetry that relies on on-the-page formatting. But every once in a while I read one that's so fucking good that I can't resist. And in this case, I am just going to link it instead of reposting it: Obligations 2 by Layli Long Soldier, from New Poets of Native Nations, 2018. It's extraordinary.
Friday, April 30, 2021
a poem in this place
I'm going to post two poems today and my final poem tomorrow, on May 1st, because time is a construct. This poem was originally intended for Wednesday, April 28, and it was one of the first poems I picked out for this year, back in January when Amanda Gorman instantly became everyone's favorite young poet (with very good reason). Her new poetry collection comes out in September, and I am very excited.
There’s a poem in this place—
in the footfalls in the halls
in the quiet beat of the seats.
It is here, at the curtain of day,
where America writes a lyric
you must whisper to say.
There’s a poem in this place—
in the heavy grace,
the lined face of this noble building,
collections burned and reborn twice.
There’s a poem in Boston’s Copley Square
where protest chants
tear through the air
like sheets of rain,
where love of the many
swallows hatred of the few.
There’s a poem in Charlottesville
where tiki torches string a ring of flame
tight round the wrist of night
where men so white they gleam blue—
seem like statues
where men heap that long wax burning
ever higher
where Heather Heyer
blooms forever in a meadow of resistance.
There’s a poem in the great sleeping giant
of Lake Michigan, defiantly raising
its big blue head to Milwaukee and Chicago—
a poem begun long ago, blazed into frozen soil,
strutting upward and aglow.
There’s a poem in Florida, in East Texas
where streets swell into a nexus
of rivers, cows afloat like mottled buoys in the brown,
where courage is now so common
that 23-year-old Jesus Contreras rescues people from floodwaters.
There’s a poem in Los Angeles
yawning wide as the Pacific tide
where a single mother swelters
in a windowless classroom, teaching
black and brown students in Watts
to spell out their thoughts
so her daughter might write
this poem for you.
There's a lyric in California
where thousands of students march for blocks,
undocumented and unafraid;
where my friend Rosa finds the power to blossom
in deadlock, her spirit the bedrock of her community.
She knows hope is like a stubborn
ship gripping a dock,
a truth: that you can’t stop a dreamer
or knock down a dream.
How could this not be her city
su nación
our country
our America,
our American lyric to write—
a poem by the people, the poor,
the Protestant, the Muslim, the Jew,
the native, the immigrant,
the black, the brown, the blind, the brave,
the undocumented and undeterred,
the woman, the man, the nonbinary,
the white, the trans,
the ally to all of the above
and more?
Tyrants fear the poet.
Now that we know it
we can’t blow it.
We owe it
to show it
not slow it
although it
hurts to sew it
when the world
skirts below it.
Hope—
we must bestow it
like a wick in the poet
so it can grow, lit,
bringing with it
stories to rewrite—
the story of a Texas city depleted but not defeated
a history written that need not be repeated
a nation composed but not yet completed.
There’s a poem in this place—
a poem in America
a poet in every American
who rewrites this nation, who tells
a story worthy of being told on this minnow of an earth
to breathe hope into a palimpsest of time—
a poet in every American
who sees that our poem penned
doesn’t mean our poem’s end.
There’s a place where this poem dwells—
it is here, it is now, in the yellow song of dawn’s bell
where we write an American lyric
we are just beginning to tell.
—Amanda Gorman, "In This Place (An American Lyric)," an original poem written for the inaugural reading of Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith at the Library of Congress, 2017. There's an audio reading of this poem at poets.org.
There’s a poem in this place—
in the footfalls in the halls
in the quiet beat of the seats.
It is here, at the curtain of day,
where America writes a lyric
you must whisper to say.
There’s a poem in this place—
in the heavy grace,
the lined face of this noble building,
collections burned and reborn twice.
There’s a poem in Boston’s Copley Square
where protest chants
tear through the air
like sheets of rain,
where love of the many
swallows hatred of the few.
There’s a poem in Charlottesville
where tiki torches string a ring of flame
tight round the wrist of night
where men so white they gleam blue—
seem like statues
where men heap that long wax burning
ever higher
where Heather Heyer
blooms forever in a meadow of resistance.
There’s a poem in the great sleeping giant
of Lake Michigan, defiantly raising
its big blue head to Milwaukee and Chicago—
a poem begun long ago, blazed into frozen soil,
strutting upward and aglow.
There’s a poem in Florida, in East Texas
where streets swell into a nexus
of rivers, cows afloat like mottled buoys in the brown,
where courage is now so common
that 23-year-old Jesus Contreras rescues people from floodwaters.
There’s a poem in Los Angeles
yawning wide as the Pacific tide
where a single mother swelters
in a windowless classroom, teaching
black and brown students in Watts
to spell out their thoughts
so her daughter might write
this poem for you.
There's a lyric in California
where thousands of students march for blocks,
undocumented and unafraid;
where my friend Rosa finds the power to blossom
in deadlock, her spirit the bedrock of her community.
She knows hope is like a stubborn
ship gripping a dock,
a truth: that you can’t stop a dreamer
or knock down a dream.
How could this not be her city
su nación
our country
our America,
our American lyric to write—
a poem by the people, the poor,
the Protestant, the Muslim, the Jew,
the native, the immigrant,
the black, the brown, the blind, the brave,
the undocumented and undeterred,
the woman, the man, the nonbinary,
the white, the trans,
the ally to all of the above
and more?
Tyrants fear the poet.
Now that we know it
we can’t blow it.
We owe it
to show it
not slow it
although it
hurts to sew it
when the world
skirts below it.
Hope—
we must bestow it
like a wick in the poet
so it can grow, lit,
bringing with it
stories to rewrite—
the story of a Texas city depleted but not defeated
a history written that need not be repeated
a nation composed but not yet completed.
There’s a poem in this place—
a poem in America
a poet in every American
who rewrites this nation, who tells
a story worthy of being told on this minnow of an earth
to breathe hope into a palimpsest of time—
a poet in every American
who sees that our poem penned
doesn’t mean our poem’s end.
There’s a place where this poem dwells—
it is here, it is now, in the yellow song of dawn’s bell
where we write an American lyric
we are just beginning to tell.
—Amanda Gorman, "In This Place (An American Lyric)," an original poem written for the inaugural reading of Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith at the Library of Congress, 2017. There's an audio reading of this poem at poets.org.
Sunday, April 25, 2021
a word stranded by its language
I knew I wanted to post something by Ocean Vuong this year, but it took me a long time to decide which poem. But I just kept coming back to this one. One of the things I love about Vuong's poetry is that it is often sort of viscerally horrifying, while at the same time being an absolute triumph of language.
Because the butterfly's yellow wing
flickering in black mud
was a word
stranded by its language.
Because no one else
was coming — & I ran
out of reasons.
So I gathered fistfuls
of ash, dark as ink,
hammered them
into marrow, into
a skull thick
enough to keep
the gentle curse
of dreams. Yes, I aimed
for mercy —
but came only close
as building a cage
around the heart. Shutters
over the eyes. Yes,
I gave it hands
despite knowing
that to stretch that clay slab
into five blades of light,
I would go
too far. Because I, too,
needed a place
to hold me. So I dipped
my fingers back
into the fire, pried open
the lower face
until the wound widened
into a throat,
until every leaf shook silver
with that god
-awful scream
& I was done.
& it was human.
—Ocean Vuong, "Essay on Craft," from Poetry magazine, July/August 2017.
Because the butterfly's yellow wing
flickering in black mud
was a word
stranded by its language.
Because no one else
was coming — & I ran
out of reasons.
So I gathered fistfuls
of ash, dark as ink,
hammered them
into marrow, into
a skull thick
enough to keep
the gentle curse
of dreams. Yes, I aimed
for mercy —
but came only close
as building a cage
around the heart. Shutters
over the eyes. Yes,
I gave it hands
despite knowing
that to stretch that clay slab
into five blades of light,
I would go
too far. Because I, too,
needed a place
to hold me. So I dipped
my fingers back
into the fire, pried open
the lower face
until the wound widened
into a throat,
until every leaf shook silver
with that god
-awful scream
& I was done.
& it was human.
—Ocean Vuong, "Essay on Craft," from Poetry magazine, July/August 2017.
Monday, April 27, 2020
morose or kinky
I've been thinking a lot about plague years and our relationship with history, so here's Auden on the medieval poets. Look, I'm not saying the connections I draw during poetry month always make sense.
Chaucer, Langland, Douglas, Dunbar, with all your
brother Anons, how on earth did you ever manage,
without anaesthetics or plumbing,
in daily peril from witches, warlocks,
lepers, The Holy Office, foreign mercenaries
burning as they came, to write so cheerfully,
with no grimaces or self-pathos?
Long-winded you could be but not vulgar,
bawdy but not grubby, your raucous flytings
sheer high-spirited fun, whereas our makers,
beset by every creature comfort,
immune, they believe, to all superstitions,
even at their best are often morose or
kinky, petrified by their gorgon egos.
We all ask, but I doubt if anyone
can really say why all age-groups should find our
Age quite so repulsive. Without its heartless
engines, though, you could not tenant my book-shelves
on hand to delect my ear and chuckle
my sad flesh: I would gladly just now be
turning out verses to applaud a thundery
jovial June when the judas-tree is in blossom,
but am forbidden by the knowledge
that you would have wrought them so much better.
—W. H. Auden (1907-1973), "Ode to the Medieval Poets," June 1971.
Chaucer, Langland, Douglas, Dunbar, with all your
brother Anons, how on earth did you ever manage,
without anaesthetics or plumbing,
in daily peril from witches, warlocks,
lepers, The Holy Office, foreign mercenaries
burning as they came, to write so cheerfully,
with no grimaces or self-pathos?
Long-winded you could be but not vulgar,
bawdy but not grubby, your raucous flytings
sheer high-spirited fun, whereas our makers,
beset by every creature comfort,
immune, they believe, to all superstitions,
even at their best are often morose or
kinky, petrified by their gorgon egos.
We all ask, but I doubt if anyone
can really say why all age-groups should find our
Age quite so repulsive. Without its heartless
engines, though, you could not tenant my book-shelves
on hand to delect my ear and chuckle
my sad flesh: I would gladly just now be
turning out verses to applaud a thundery
jovial June when the judas-tree is in blossom,
but am forbidden by the knowledge
that you would have wrought them so much better.
—W. H. Auden (1907-1973), "Ode to the Medieval Poets," June 1971.
Saturday, April 25, 2020
the love of that fair tree
Today I went outside, and, being outside in the sunshine, in very nice parks that had way too many people in them, I thought, "I want a country house." So here's a country house poem. There were a lot of reasons I never finished my dissertation, but this poem wasn't one of them; I love country house poems. This country house poem is a patronage bid (of course), and frequently kind of hilarious, but it's also about loss and nostalgia in a way that can be sort of achy and beautiful. Also, it's pretty queer.
Farewell (sweet Cooke-ham) where I first obtained
Grace from that grace where perfect grace remained;
And where the muses gave their full consent,
I should have power the virtuous to content;
Where princely palace willed me to indite,
The sacred story of the soul’s delight.
Farewell (sweet place) where virtue then did rest,
And all delights did harbor in her breast;
Never shall my sad eyes again behold
Those pleasures which my thoughts did then unfold.
Yet you (great Lady) Mistress of that place,
From whose desires did spring this work of grace;
Vouchsafe to think upon those pleasures past,
As fleeting worldly joys that could not last,
Or, as dim shadows of celestial pleasures,
Which are desired above all earthly treasures.
Oh how (methought) against you thither came,
Each part did seem some new delight to frame!
The house received all ornaments to grace it,
And would endure no foulness to deface it.
And walks put on their summer liveries,
And all things else did hold like similes.
The trees with leaves, with fruits, with flowers clad,
Embraced each other, seeming to be glad,
Turning themselves to beauteous Canopies,
To shade the bright sun from your brighter eyes;
The crystal streams with silver spangles graced,
While by the glorious sun they were embraced;
The little birds in chirping notes did sing,
To entertain both you and that sweet spring.
And Philomela with her sundry lays,
Both you and that delightful place did praise.
Oh how me thought each plant, each flower, each tree
Set forth their beauties then to welcome thee!
The very hills right humbly did descend,
When you to tread on them did intend.
And as you set your feet, they still did rise,
Glad that they could receive so rich a prize.
The gentle winds did take delight to be
Among those woods that were so graced by thee,
And in sad murmur uttered pleasing sound,
That pleasure in that place might more abound.
The swelling banks delivered all their pride
When such a Phoenix once they had espied.
Each arbor, bank, each seat, each stately tree,
Thought themselves honored in supporting thee;
The pretty birds would oft come to attend thee,
Yet fly away for fear they should offend thee;
The little creatures in the burrough by
Would come abroad to sport them in your eye,
Yet fearful of the bow in your fair hand.
Would run away when you did make a stand.
Now let me come unto that stately tree,
Wherein such goodly prospects you did see;
That oak that did in height his fellows pass,
As much as lofty trees, low growing grass,
Much like a comely cedar straight and tall,
Whose beauteous stature far exceeded all.
How often did you visit this fair tree,
Which seeming joyful in receiving thee,
Would like a palm tree spread his arms abroad,
Desirous that you there should make abode;
Whose fair green leaves much like a comely veil,
Defended Phoebus when he would assail;
Whose pleasing boughs did yield a cool fresh air,
Joying his happiness when you were there.
Where being seated, you might plainly see
Hills, vales, and woods, as if on bended knee
They had appeared, your honor to salute,
Or to prefer some strange unlooked-for suit;
All interlaced with brooks and crystal springs,
A prospect fit to please the eyes of kings.
And thirteen shires appeared all in your sight,
Europe could not afford much more delight.
What was there then but gave you all content,
While you the time in meditation spent
Of their Creator’s power, which there you saw,
In all his creatures held a perfect law;
And in their beauties did you plain descry
His beauty, wisdom, grace, love, majesty.
In these sweet woods how often did you walk,
With Christ and his Apostles there to talk;
Placing his holy Writ in some fair tree
To meditate what you therein did see.
With Moses you did mount his holy hill
To know his pleasure, and perform his will.
With lowly David you did often sing
His holy hymns to Heaven’s eternal King.
And in sweet music did your soul delight
To sound his praises, morning, noon, and night.
With blessed Joseph you did often feed
Your pined brethren, when they stood in need.
And that sweet Lady sprung from Clifford’s race,
Of noble Bedford’s blood, fair stem of grace,
To honorable Dorset now espoused,
In whose fair breast true virtue then was housed,
Oh what delight did my weak spirits find
In those pure parts of her well framèd mind.
And yet it grieves me that I cannot be
Near unto her, whose virtues did agree
With those fair ornaments of outward beauty,
Which did enforce from all both love and duty.
Unconstant Fortune, thou art most to blame,
Who casts us down into so low a frame
Where our great friends we cannot daily see,
So great a difference is there in degree.
Many are placed in those orbs of state,
Partners in honor, so ordained by Fate,
Nearer in show, yet farther off in love,
In which, the lowest always are above.
But whither am I carried in conceit,
My wit too weak to conster of the great.
Why not? although we are but born of earth,
We may behold the heavens, despising death;
And loving heaven that is so far above,
May in the end vouchsafe us entire love.
Therefore sweet memory do thou retain
Those pleasures past, which will not turn again:
Remember beauteous Dorset’s former sports,
So far from being touched by ill reports,
Wherein myself did always bear a part,
While reverend love presented my true heart.
Those recreations let me bear in mind,
Which her sweet youth and noble thoughts did find,
Whereof deprived, I evermore must grieve,
Hating blind Fortune, careless to relieve,
And you sweet Cooke-ham, whom these ladies leave,
I now must tell the grief you did conceive
At their departure, when they went away,
How everything retained a sad dismay.
Nay long before, when once an inkling came,
Methought each thing did unto sorrow frame:
The trees that were so glorious in our view,
Forsook both flowers and fruit, when once they knew
Of your depart, their very leaves did wither,
Changing their colors as they grew together.
But when they saw this had no power to stay you,
They often wept, though, speechless, could not pray you,
Letting their tears in your fair bosoms fall,
As if they said, Why will ye leave us all?
This being vain, they cast their leaves away
Hoping that pity would have made you stay:
Their frozen tops, like age’s hoary hairs,
Shows their disasters, languishing in fears.
A swarthy riveled rind all over spread,
Their dying bodies half alive, half dead.
But your occasions called you so away
That nothing there had power to make you stay.
Yet did I see a noble grateful mind
Requiting each according to their kind,
Forgetting not to turn and take your leave
Of these sad creatures, powerless to receive
Your favor, when with grief you did depart,
Placing their former pleasures in your heart,
Giving great charge to noble memory
There to preserve their love continually.
But specially the love of that fair tree,
That first and last you did vouchsafe to see,
In which it pleased you oft to take the air
With noble Dorset, then a virgin fair,
Where many a learned book was read and scanned,
To this fair tree, taking me by the hand,
You did repeat the pleasures which had passed,
Seeming to grieve they could no longer last.
And with a chaste, yet loving kiss took leave,
Of which sweet kiss I did it soon bereave,
Scorning a senseless creature should possess
So rare a favor, so great happiness.
No other kiss it could receive from me,
For fear to give back what it took of thee,
So I ungrateful creature did deceive it
Of that which you in love vouchsafed to leave it.
And though it oft had given me much content,
Yet this great wrong I never could repent;
But of the happiest made it most forlorn,
To show that nothing’s free from Fortune’s scorne,
While all the rest with this most beauteous tree
Made their sad consort sorrow’s harmony.
The flowers that on the banks and walks did grow,
Crept in the ground, the grass did weep for woe.
The winds and waters seemed to chide together
Because you went away they knew not whither;
And those sweet brooks that ran so fair and clear,
With grief and trouble wrinkled did appear.
Those pretty birds that wonted were to sing,
Now neither sing, nor chirp, nor use their wing,
But with their tender feet on some bare spray,
Warble forth sorrow, and their own dismay.
Fair Philomela leaves her mournful ditty,
Drowned in deep sleep, yet can procure no pity.
Each arbor, bank, each seat, each stately tree
Looks bare and desolate now for want of thee,
Turning green tresses into frosty gray,
While in cold grief they wither all away.
The sun grew weak, his beams no comfort gave,
While all green things did make the earth their grave.
Each brier, each bramble, when you went away
Caught fast your clothes, thinking to make you stay;
Delightful Echo wonted to reply
To our last words, did now for sorrow die;
The house cast off each garment that might grace it,
Putting on dust and cobwebs to deface it.
All desolation then there did appear,
When you were going whom they held so dear.
This last farewell to Cooke-ham here I give,
When I am dead thy name in this may live,
Wherein I have performed her noble hest
Whose virtues lodge in my unworthy breast,
And ever shall, so long as life remains,
Tying my life to her by those rich chains.
—Aemilia Lanyer (1569-1645), "The Description of Cooke-ham" originally published in 1611, at the conclusion of Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (Printed for Valentine Simmes for Richard Bonian). Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum was entered in the Stationers' Register on October 2, 1610, and "The Description of Cooke-ham" has to have been written before then and after February 25, 1609, when Anne Clifford married and became the Countess of Dorset. Of course, the poem itself is the only real evidence that Lanyer actually spent any time at Cookham with the Cliffords, especially since the Cliffords barely lived there and the property didn't even belong to them. It also does not seem to have been a successful patronage bid on Lanyer's part, which may or may not have been her own fault for putting her poems into print. If you've heard of Aemilia Lanyer before (not from me) and are not generally familiar with seventeenth-century poetry, it's probably as a possible candidate for the Dark Lady of the Sonnets, or Shakespeare if Shakespeare wasn't Shakespeare and was a lady (both of these ideas are nonsense, but the second one delights me).
Lanyer's poem was also the first printed country house poem in English, and predates Ben Jonson's "To Penshurst" by five years, which means that crediting Jonson with the foundation of the seventeenth-century country house poem tradition is absolutely a dick move. In case anyone was wondering, my favorite part of this poem is the whole thing where Margaret Clifford (the Duchess of Cumberland, to whom the poem is addressed, along with her daughter Anne, famous seventeenth-century diarist) kisses the tree, and then Aemilia TAKES THE KISS FROM THE TREE. FOR REASONS?! Is it really a country house poem if somebody isn't doing something questionable with a tree?
Farewell (sweet Cooke-ham) where I first obtained
Grace from that grace where perfect grace remained;
And where the muses gave their full consent,
I should have power the virtuous to content;
Where princely palace willed me to indite,
The sacred story of the soul’s delight.
Farewell (sweet place) where virtue then did rest,
And all delights did harbor in her breast;
Never shall my sad eyes again behold
Those pleasures which my thoughts did then unfold.
Yet you (great Lady) Mistress of that place,
From whose desires did spring this work of grace;
Vouchsafe to think upon those pleasures past,
As fleeting worldly joys that could not last,
Or, as dim shadows of celestial pleasures,
Which are desired above all earthly treasures.
Oh how (methought) against you thither came,
Each part did seem some new delight to frame!
The house received all ornaments to grace it,
And would endure no foulness to deface it.
And walks put on their summer liveries,
And all things else did hold like similes.
The trees with leaves, with fruits, with flowers clad,
Embraced each other, seeming to be glad,
Turning themselves to beauteous Canopies,
To shade the bright sun from your brighter eyes;
The crystal streams with silver spangles graced,
While by the glorious sun they were embraced;
The little birds in chirping notes did sing,
To entertain both you and that sweet spring.
And Philomela with her sundry lays,
Both you and that delightful place did praise.
Oh how me thought each plant, each flower, each tree
Set forth their beauties then to welcome thee!
The very hills right humbly did descend,
When you to tread on them did intend.
And as you set your feet, they still did rise,
Glad that they could receive so rich a prize.
The gentle winds did take delight to be
Among those woods that were so graced by thee,
And in sad murmur uttered pleasing sound,
That pleasure in that place might more abound.
The swelling banks delivered all their pride
When such a Phoenix once they had espied.
Each arbor, bank, each seat, each stately tree,
Thought themselves honored in supporting thee;
The pretty birds would oft come to attend thee,
Yet fly away for fear they should offend thee;
The little creatures in the burrough by
Would come abroad to sport them in your eye,
Yet fearful of the bow in your fair hand.
Would run away when you did make a stand.
Now let me come unto that stately tree,
Wherein such goodly prospects you did see;
That oak that did in height his fellows pass,
As much as lofty trees, low growing grass,
Much like a comely cedar straight and tall,
Whose beauteous stature far exceeded all.
How often did you visit this fair tree,
Which seeming joyful in receiving thee,
Would like a palm tree spread his arms abroad,
Desirous that you there should make abode;
Whose fair green leaves much like a comely veil,
Defended Phoebus when he would assail;
Whose pleasing boughs did yield a cool fresh air,
Joying his happiness when you were there.
Where being seated, you might plainly see
Hills, vales, and woods, as if on bended knee
They had appeared, your honor to salute,
Or to prefer some strange unlooked-for suit;
All interlaced with brooks and crystal springs,
A prospect fit to please the eyes of kings.
And thirteen shires appeared all in your sight,
Europe could not afford much more delight.
What was there then but gave you all content,
While you the time in meditation spent
Of their Creator’s power, which there you saw,
In all his creatures held a perfect law;
And in their beauties did you plain descry
His beauty, wisdom, grace, love, majesty.
In these sweet woods how often did you walk,
With Christ and his Apostles there to talk;
Placing his holy Writ in some fair tree
To meditate what you therein did see.
With Moses you did mount his holy hill
To know his pleasure, and perform his will.
With lowly David you did often sing
His holy hymns to Heaven’s eternal King.
And in sweet music did your soul delight
To sound his praises, morning, noon, and night.
With blessed Joseph you did often feed
Your pined brethren, when they stood in need.
And that sweet Lady sprung from Clifford’s race,
Of noble Bedford’s blood, fair stem of grace,
To honorable Dorset now espoused,
In whose fair breast true virtue then was housed,
Oh what delight did my weak spirits find
In those pure parts of her well framèd mind.
And yet it grieves me that I cannot be
Near unto her, whose virtues did agree
With those fair ornaments of outward beauty,
Which did enforce from all both love and duty.
Unconstant Fortune, thou art most to blame,
Who casts us down into so low a frame
Where our great friends we cannot daily see,
So great a difference is there in degree.
Many are placed in those orbs of state,
Partners in honor, so ordained by Fate,
Nearer in show, yet farther off in love,
In which, the lowest always are above.
But whither am I carried in conceit,
My wit too weak to conster of the great.
Why not? although we are but born of earth,
We may behold the heavens, despising death;
And loving heaven that is so far above,
May in the end vouchsafe us entire love.
Therefore sweet memory do thou retain
Those pleasures past, which will not turn again:
Remember beauteous Dorset’s former sports,
So far from being touched by ill reports,
Wherein myself did always bear a part,
While reverend love presented my true heart.
Those recreations let me bear in mind,
Which her sweet youth and noble thoughts did find,
Whereof deprived, I evermore must grieve,
Hating blind Fortune, careless to relieve,
And you sweet Cooke-ham, whom these ladies leave,
I now must tell the grief you did conceive
At their departure, when they went away,
How everything retained a sad dismay.
Nay long before, when once an inkling came,
Methought each thing did unto sorrow frame:
The trees that were so glorious in our view,
Forsook both flowers and fruit, when once they knew
Of your depart, their very leaves did wither,
Changing their colors as they grew together.
But when they saw this had no power to stay you,
They often wept, though, speechless, could not pray you,
Letting their tears in your fair bosoms fall,
As if they said, Why will ye leave us all?
This being vain, they cast their leaves away
Hoping that pity would have made you stay:
Their frozen tops, like age’s hoary hairs,
Shows their disasters, languishing in fears.
A swarthy riveled rind all over spread,
Their dying bodies half alive, half dead.
But your occasions called you so away
That nothing there had power to make you stay.
Yet did I see a noble grateful mind
Requiting each according to their kind,
Forgetting not to turn and take your leave
Of these sad creatures, powerless to receive
Your favor, when with grief you did depart,
Placing their former pleasures in your heart,
Giving great charge to noble memory
There to preserve their love continually.
But specially the love of that fair tree,
That first and last you did vouchsafe to see,
In which it pleased you oft to take the air
With noble Dorset, then a virgin fair,
Where many a learned book was read and scanned,
To this fair tree, taking me by the hand,
You did repeat the pleasures which had passed,
Seeming to grieve they could no longer last.
And with a chaste, yet loving kiss took leave,
Of which sweet kiss I did it soon bereave,
Scorning a senseless creature should possess
So rare a favor, so great happiness.
No other kiss it could receive from me,
For fear to give back what it took of thee,
So I ungrateful creature did deceive it
Of that which you in love vouchsafed to leave it.
And though it oft had given me much content,
Yet this great wrong I never could repent;
But of the happiest made it most forlorn,
To show that nothing’s free from Fortune’s scorne,
While all the rest with this most beauteous tree
Made their sad consort sorrow’s harmony.
The flowers that on the banks and walks did grow,
Crept in the ground, the grass did weep for woe.
The winds and waters seemed to chide together
Because you went away they knew not whither;
And those sweet brooks that ran so fair and clear,
With grief and trouble wrinkled did appear.
Those pretty birds that wonted were to sing,
Now neither sing, nor chirp, nor use their wing,
But with their tender feet on some bare spray,
Warble forth sorrow, and their own dismay.
Fair Philomela leaves her mournful ditty,
Drowned in deep sleep, yet can procure no pity.
Each arbor, bank, each seat, each stately tree
Looks bare and desolate now for want of thee,
Turning green tresses into frosty gray,
While in cold grief they wither all away.
The sun grew weak, his beams no comfort gave,
While all green things did make the earth their grave.
Each brier, each bramble, when you went away
Caught fast your clothes, thinking to make you stay;
Delightful Echo wonted to reply
To our last words, did now for sorrow die;
The house cast off each garment that might grace it,
Putting on dust and cobwebs to deface it.
All desolation then there did appear,
When you were going whom they held so dear.
This last farewell to Cooke-ham here I give,
When I am dead thy name in this may live,
Wherein I have performed her noble hest
Whose virtues lodge in my unworthy breast,
And ever shall, so long as life remains,
Tying my life to her by those rich chains.
—Aemilia Lanyer (1569-1645), "The Description of Cooke-ham" originally published in 1611, at the conclusion of Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (Printed for Valentine Simmes for Richard Bonian). Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum was entered in the Stationers' Register on October 2, 1610, and "The Description of Cooke-ham" has to have been written before then and after February 25, 1609, when Anne Clifford married and became the Countess of Dorset. Of course, the poem itself is the only real evidence that Lanyer actually spent any time at Cookham with the Cliffords, especially since the Cliffords barely lived there and the property didn't even belong to them. It also does not seem to have been a successful patronage bid on Lanyer's part, which may or may not have been her own fault for putting her poems into print. If you've heard of Aemilia Lanyer before (not from me) and are not generally familiar with seventeenth-century poetry, it's probably as a possible candidate for the Dark Lady of the Sonnets, or Shakespeare if Shakespeare wasn't Shakespeare and was a lady (both of these ideas are nonsense, but the second one delights me).
Lanyer's poem was also the first printed country house poem in English, and predates Ben Jonson's "To Penshurst" by five years, which means that crediting Jonson with the foundation of the seventeenth-century country house poem tradition is absolutely a dick move. In case anyone was wondering, my favorite part of this poem is the whole thing where Margaret Clifford (the Duchess of Cumberland, to whom the poem is addressed, along with her daughter Anne, famous seventeenth-century diarist) kisses the tree, and then Aemilia TAKES THE KISS FROM THE TREE. FOR REASONS?! Is it really a country house poem if somebody isn't doing something questionable with a tree?
Friday, April 10, 2020
my soul's form bends
In this house, we post devotional poetry in multiple religions! I've alluded to this poem more than once over the years, but for various reasons I've never posted it; it seemed like it was time.
Let man's soul be a sphere, and then in this
The intelligence that moves, devotion is,
And as the other spheres, by being grown
Subject to foreign motion, lose their own,
And being by others hurried every day
Scarce in a year their natural form obey,
Pleasure or business so our souls admit
For their first mover, and are whirled by it.
Hence is't that I am carried towards the West
This day, when my soul's form bends towards the East.
There I should see a sun by rising set,
And by that setting endless day beget;
But that Christ on this cross did rise and fall,
Sin had eternally benighted all.
Yet dare I'almost be glad I do not see
That spectacle, of too much weight for me.
Who sees God's face, that is self life, must die:
What a death were it then to see God die!
It made his own lieutenant, Nature, shrink:
It made his footstool crack, and the sun wink.
Could I behold those hands which span the Poles,
And turn all spheres at once, pierced with those holes?
Could I behold that endless height which is
Zenith to us and our Antipodes,
Humbled below us? Or that blood, which is
The seat of all our souls, if not of his,
Make dirt of dust? Or that flesh, which was worn
By God for his apparel, rag'd and torn?
If on these things I durst not look, durst I
Upon his miserable mother cast mine eye,
Who was God's partner here, and furnish'd thus
Half of that sacrifice which ransom'd us?
Though these things as I ride be from mine eye,
They're present yet unto my memory,
For that looks towards them; and thou look'st towards me,
O Saviour, as though hang'st upon the tree.
I turn my back to thee but to receive
Corrections, till thy mercies bid thee leave.
O think me worth thine anger, punish me,
Burn off my rusts and my deformity;
Restore thine image so much by thy grace
That thou may'st know me, and I'll turn my face.
—John Donne (1572-1631), "Good Friday, 1613: Riding Westward," also known as "Good Friday: Made as I was Riding Westward that Day," "Good Friday," "Riding Westward," "A Meditation upon Good Friday, 1613" and several other variations; presumably written on April 2, 1613. The general consensus is that Donne was riding to visit Sir Edward Herbert in Wales. I had in my head the apocryphal theory that Donne was leaving London to get away from the plague when he wrote this poem, but I don't think that's actually true—1613 doesn't seem to have been a major plague year, even if it would make a good story, here in 2020. I slightly adapted the (modernized) orthography and punctuation from the massive Longman Complete Poems of John Donne, edited by Robin Robbins (2010), but with Donne you're always editing a little, even when you choose an edition. His poetry circulated so widely that there's no true standardized text, which personally I sort of like—e.g. line 22, which could be "tune all spheres" or "turn all spheres," both of which make sense in context and look pretty much exactly the same in secretary hand.
Let man's soul be a sphere, and then in this
The intelligence that moves, devotion is,
And as the other spheres, by being grown
Subject to foreign motion, lose their own,
And being by others hurried every day
Scarce in a year their natural form obey,
Pleasure or business so our souls admit
For their first mover, and are whirled by it.
Hence is't that I am carried towards the West
This day, when my soul's form bends towards the East.
There I should see a sun by rising set,
And by that setting endless day beget;
But that Christ on this cross did rise and fall,
Sin had eternally benighted all.
Yet dare I'almost be glad I do not see
That spectacle, of too much weight for me.
Who sees God's face, that is self life, must die:
What a death were it then to see God die!
It made his own lieutenant, Nature, shrink:
It made his footstool crack, and the sun wink.
Could I behold those hands which span the Poles,
And turn all spheres at once, pierced with those holes?
Could I behold that endless height which is
Zenith to us and our Antipodes,
Humbled below us? Or that blood, which is
The seat of all our souls, if not of his,
Make dirt of dust? Or that flesh, which was worn
By God for his apparel, rag'd and torn?
If on these things I durst not look, durst I
Upon his miserable mother cast mine eye,
Who was God's partner here, and furnish'd thus
Half of that sacrifice which ransom'd us?
Though these things as I ride be from mine eye,
They're present yet unto my memory,
For that looks towards them; and thou look'st towards me,
O Saviour, as though hang'st upon the tree.
I turn my back to thee but to receive
Corrections, till thy mercies bid thee leave.
O think me worth thine anger, punish me,
Burn off my rusts and my deformity;
Restore thine image so much by thy grace
That thou may'st know me, and I'll turn my face.
—John Donne (1572-1631), "Good Friday, 1613: Riding Westward," also known as "Good Friday: Made as I was Riding Westward that Day," "Good Friday," "Riding Westward," "A Meditation upon Good Friday, 1613" and several other variations; presumably written on April 2, 1613. The general consensus is that Donne was riding to visit Sir Edward Herbert in Wales. I had in my head the apocryphal theory that Donne was leaving London to get away from the plague when he wrote this poem, but I don't think that's actually true—1613 doesn't seem to have been a major plague year, even if it would make a good story, here in 2020. I slightly adapted the (modernized) orthography and punctuation from the massive Longman Complete Poems of John Donne, edited by Robin Robbins (2010), but with Donne you're always editing a little, even when you choose an edition. His poetry circulated so widely that there's no true standardized text, which personally I sort of like—e.g. line 22, which could be "tune all spheres" or "turn all spheres," both of which make sense in context and look pretty much exactly the same in secretary hand.
Saturday, April 27, 2019
possibility
In thirteen years of posting poems, I have posted very little famous Emily Dickinson. She wrote so many poems that it's not actually that hard to post non-famous ones, but the truth is that the famous ones are sometimes famous for good reasons. I really love this poem.
I dwell in Possibility –
A fairer House than Prose –
More numerous of Windows –
Superior – for Doors –
Of Chambers as the Cedars –
Impregnable of eye –
And for an everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky –
Of Visitors – the fairest –
For Occupation – This –
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise –
—Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), "I dwell in Possibility," #466, in this case from the R. W. Franklin edition of The Poems of Emily Dickinson, via Poetry Foundation. Emily Dickinson is a metaphysical poet; fight me.
like sky-written letters on a windy day
I'm counting this poem for yesterday (there will be another poem later today), but it's also sort of a first: this is the first year in poetry month history where I don't have a John Donne poem on my schedule. But I do have this one, which isn't exactly not a John Donne poem.
Every reader loves the way he tells off
the sun, shouting busy old fool
into the English skies even though they
were likely cloudy on that seventeenth-century morning.
And it's a pleasure to spend this sunny day
pacing the carpet and repeating the words,
feeling the syllables lock into rows
until I can stand and declare,
the book held closed by my side,
that hours, days, and months are but the rags of time.
But after a few steps into stanza number two,
wherein the sun is blinded by his mistress's eyes,
I can feel the first one begin to fade
like sky-written letters on a windy day.
And by the time I have taken in the third,
the second is likewise gone, a blown-out candle now,
a wavering line of acrid smoke.
So it's not until I leave the house
and walk three times around this hidden lake
that the poem begins to show
any interest in walking by my side.
Then, after my circling,
better than the courteous dominion
of her being all states and him all princes,
better than love's power to shrink
the wide world to the size of a bedchamber,
and better even than the compression
of all that into the rooms of these three stanzas
is how, after hours stepping up and down the poem,
testing the plank of every line,
it goes with me now, contracted into a little spot within.
—Billy Collins, "Memorizing 'The Sun Rising' by John Donne," from Horoscopes for the Dead, 2011. I posted "The Sun Rising" back in 2008.
Thursday, April 25, 2019
our bodies, possessed by light
I missed yesterday for migraine reasons (I am not feeling amazing today, either, but poetry month continues, and makes me feel better about most things), so here are two poems by two different poets with the same title. The second one was already on my poem schedule, but I also really love the first one, and it made sense to post them together. Both poems do kind of amazing and completely different things with poetic structure, and both, of course, are about Scheherazade, and storytelling, and love.
Dumb was as good as dead;
better to utter.
Inside a bottle, a genie.
Abracadabra.
Words were a silver thread
stitching the night.
The first story I said
led to the light.
Fact was in black and white;
fiction was colour.
Inside a dragon, a jewel.
Abracadabra.
A magic carpet took flight,
bearing a girl.
The hand of a Queen shut tight
over a pearl.
Imagination was world;
clever to chatter.
Inside a she-mule, a princess.
Abracadabra.
A golden sword was hurled
into a cloud.
A dead woman unfurled
out of a shroud.
A fable spoken aloud
kindled another.
Inside a virgin, a lover.
Abracadabra.
Forty thieves in a crowd,
bearded and bold.
A lamp rubbed by a lad
turning to gold.
Talking lips don't grow cold;
babble and jabber.
Inside a beehive, a fortune.
Abracadabra.
What was lost was held
inside a tale.
The tall stories I told
utterly real.
Inside a marriage, a gaol;
better to vanish.
Inside a mirror, an ogre;
better to banish.
A thousand and one tales;
weeping and laughter.
Only the silent fail.
Abracadabra.
—Carol Ann Duffy, "Scheherazade," from The Bees, 2011.
*
Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake
and dress them in warm clothes again.
How it was late, and no one could sleep, the horses running
until they forget that they are horses.
It's not like a tree where the roots have to end somewhere,
it’s more like a song on a policeman’s radio,
how we rolled up the carpet so we could dance, and the days
were bright red, and every time we kissed there was another apple
to slice into pieces.
Look at the light through the windowpane. That means it's noon, that means
we’re inconsolable.
Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.
These, our bodies, possessed by light.
Tell me we'll never get used to it.
—Richard Siken, "Scheherazade," from Crush, 2005.
Friday, April 6, 2018
carve into me with knives of light
I have been saying for years that one day, someday, I would post Anne Carson's "The Glass Essay," which is a truly exceptional and extraordinary poem. I haven't done so before because it's also a very long poem, but I think today is the day. "The Glass Essay" is a poem about loss and heartbreak and recovery, sex and poetry and family and Emily Brontë, and although it's not quite about grief in the way my April 5th grief poems usually are, I am posting it for both yesterday and today. I think it's long enough, and special enough, to count for two days.
Thursday, April 27, 2017
alone in an imaginary room
Billy Collins time!
If this were a novel,
it would begin with a character,
a man alone on a southbound train
or a young girl on a swing by a farmhouse.
And as the pages turned, you would be told
that it was morning or the dead of night,
and I, the narrator, would describe
for you the miscellaneous clouds over the farmhouse
and what the man was wearing on the train
right down to his red tartan scarf,
and the hat he tossed onto the rack above his head,
as well as the cows sliding past his window.
Eventually—one can only read so fast—
you would learn either that the train was bearing
the man back to the place of his birth
or that he was headed into the vast unknown,
and you might just tolerate all of this
as you waited patiently for shots to ring out
in a ravine where the man was hiding
or for a tall, raven-haired woman to appear in a doorway.
But this is a poem, not a novel,
and the only characters here are you and I,
alone in an imaginary room
which will disappear after a few more lines,
leaving us no time to point guns at one another
or toss all our clothes into a roaring fireplace.
I ask you: who needs the man on the train
and who cares what his black valise contains?
We have something better than all this turbulence
lurching toward some ruinous conclusion.
I mean the sound that we will hear
as soon as I stop writing and put down this pen.
I once heard someone compare it
to the sound of crickets in a field of wheat
or, more faintly, just the wind
over that field stirring things that we will never see.
—Billy Collins (b. 1941), "The Great American Poem" from Ballistics (2008).
If this were a novel,
it would begin with a character,
a man alone on a southbound train
or a young girl on a swing by a farmhouse.
And as the pages turned, you would be told
that it was morning or the dead of night,
and I, the narrator, would describe
for you the miscellaneous clouds over the farmhouse
and what the man was wearing on the train
right down to his red tartan scarf,
and the hat he tossed onto the rack above his head,
as well as the cows sliding past his window.
Eventually—one can only read so fast—
you would learn either that the train was bearing
the man back to the place of his birth
or that he was headed into the vast unknown,
and you might just tolerate all of this
as you waited patiently for shots to ring out
in a ravine where the man was hiding
or for a tall, raven-haired woman to appear in a doorway.
But this is a poem, not a novel,
and the only characters here are you and I,
alone in an imaginary room
which will disappear after a few more lines,
leaving us no time to point guns at one another
or toss all our clothes into a roaring fireplace.
I ask you: who needs the man on the train
and who cares what his black valise contains?
We have something better than all this turbulence
lurching toward some ruinous conclusion.
I mean the sound that we will hear
as soon as I stop writing and put down this pen.
I once heard someone compare it
to the sound of crickets in a field of wheat
or, more faintly, just the wind
over that field stirring things that we will never see.
—Billy Collins (b. 1941), "The Great American Poem" from Ballistics (2008).
Sunday, April 23, 2017
one love
An extra poem for today (or for April 16), only a little bit because I was talking with a friend about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead the other day, and that play always makes me think of tennis. Tennis, and death possibly being a boat.
tennis players
and poets
talk to themselves
one complaining
of unforced errors
the other lamenting
lovers
not here
poets find wonderful
witty repartee
to captivate
the imagination
of the beloved
tennis players curse
in languages we don't
understand
explaining the loss
of points
poets understand loss
old age marriage
fatigue and well
just not going to
make any sense
to this person
this time
game point
set point
match point
no love
—Nikki Giovanni (b. 1943), "The International Open (Tennis Players vs. Poets)," from Chasing Utopia, 2013.
tennis players
and poets
talk to themselves
one complaining
of unforced errors
the other lamenting
lovers
not here
poets find wonderful
witty repartee
to captivate
the imagination
of the beloved
tennis players curse
in languages we don't
understand
explaining the loss
of points
poets understand loss
old age marriage
fatigue and well
just not going to
make any sense
to this person
this time
game point
set point
match point
no love
—Nikki Giovanni (b. 1943), "The International Open (Tennis Players vs. Poets)," from Chasing Utopia, 2013.
stars and sunbeams
Happy Shakespeare’s Birthday!
Others abide our question. Thou art free.
We ask and ask—Thou smilest and art still,
Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill,
Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty,
Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea,
Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place,
Spares but the cloudy border of his base
To the foil’d searching of mortality;
And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know,
Self-school’d, self-scann’d, self-honour’d, self-secure,
Didst tread on earth unguess’d at.—Better so!
All pains the immortal spirit must endure,
All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow,
Find their sole speech in that victorious brow.
—Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), "Shakespeare," first published in 1849. I sort of hate the rhyme in the last couplet of this sonnet, and also it’s a little weird that it’s a sonnet about Shakespeare but not actually a Shakespearean sonnet? YOU DO YOU, MATTHEW ARNOLD.
Others abide our question. Thou art free.
We ask and ask—Thou smilest and art still,
Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill,
Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty,
Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea,
Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place,
Spares but the cloudy border of his base
To the foil’d searching of mortality;
And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know,
Self-school’d, self-scann’d, self-honour’d, self-secure,
Didst tread on earth unguess’d at.—Better so!
All pains the immortal spirit must endure,
All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow,
Find their sole speech in that victorious brow.
—Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), "Shakespeare," first published in 1849. I sort of hate the rhyme in the last couplet of this sonnet, and also it’s a little weird that it’s a sonnet about Shakespeare but not actually a Shakespearean sonnet? YOU DO YOU, MATTHEW ARNOLD.
Saturday, April 22, 2017
memory speaking in dactyls
I spent a lot of time thinking about this poem while we were in Greece, but I had so many poems I wanted to post while we were there that some of them had to get saved for later, and this is really more of a poem about Latin than about Greek. Luckily, I then missed a whole bunch of days, so here is an extra poem for April 15.
"…forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit…"
This is dactylic hexameter. This is the meter I learned about
back when I first studied Virgil, much longer ago than I'll tell you.
I tell of a lesson that failed; I sing of a student who stumbled.
"This, even this, one day, will be helpful for us to remember…."
That's what the poet said, anyway.
Think of a scratchy recording, a thirty-three rpm relic,
and under the scratches and crackles, a basso declaiming Evangeline:
"This is the forest primeval, the murmuring pines and the hemlocks"—
that was to show us the meter of Arma virumque cano—
and beating it out on the table,
the hand of an elderly teacher, her finger-joints lumped and arthritic.
Think of old Longfellow's poem, unread now for so many decades.
Think of old classrooms, old desks, old textbooks with fray-cornered covers.
Feel the great age of the Latin, and all this antiquity pressing
on us who were girls of sixteen.
Soothing old rhythms and sounds, but the road where they led me dead-ended.
English is different from Latin, and stresses are different from long-marks.
Scattered and careless, I fumbled the Latin idea of duration.
(Lord, how I cringe when I think of the ways I misscanned the Aeneid,
misunderstanding the sound of it.)
A wonder it happens at all, that young people learn from old epics.
So many ways of mishearing the rustle of papery voices.
Still, there are fragments that stick; we look for them later and find them.
"Tears of things": now that I've shed them, the line that most comes to me lately—
memory speaking in dactyls.
—Maryann Corbett, "A Meditation on Dactylic Hexameter." I am about 98% certain that I got this poem from the wonderful wintercreek, many moons ago, but I don't have any other publication information. Maryann Corbett is pretty cool, though.
"…forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit…"
This is dactylic hexameter. This is the meter I learned about
back when I first studied Virgil, much longer ago than I'll tell you.
I tell of a lesson that failed; I sing of a student who stumbled.
"This, even this, one day, will be helpful for us to remember…."
That's what the poet said, anyway.
Think of a scratchy recording, a thirty-three rpm relic,
and under the scratches and crackles, a basso declaiming Evangeline:
"This is the forest primeval, the murmuring pines and the hemlocks"—
that was to show us the meter of Arma virumque cano—
and beating it out on the table,
the hand of an elderly teacher, her finger-joints lumped and arthritic.
Think of old Longfellow's poem, unread now for so many decades.
Think of old classrooms, old desks, old textbooks with fray-cornered covers.
Feel the great age of the Latin, and all this antiquity pressing
on us who were girls of sixteen.
Soothing old rhythms and sounds, but the road where they led me dead-ended.
English is different from Latin, and stresses are different from long-marks.
Scattered and careless, I fumbled the Latin idea of duration.
(Lord, how I cringe when I think of the ways I misscanned the Aeneid,
misunderstanding the sound of it.)
A wonder it happens at all, that young people learn from old epics.
So many ways of mishearing the rustle of papery voices.
Still, there are fragments that stick; we look for them later and find them.
"Tears of things": now that I've shed them, the line that most comes to me lately—
memory speaking in dactyls.
—Maryann Corbett, "A Meditation on Dactylic Hexameter." I am about 98% certain that I got this poem from the wonderful wintercreek, many moons ago, but I don't have any other publication information. Maryann Corbett is pretty cool, though.
Saturday, April 1, 2017
the poet has come back
So, um, HELLO. I'm in Greece! I haven't used my journal in 500 years!
BUT GUESS WHAT: it's April 1, 2017, which means it's the TENTH
ANNIVERSARY of the very first time I posted a poem a day in April, for
National Poetry Month. I had no idea what would happen when I started
this in 2007, but it's become one of my favorite traditions. A decade
later, I have yet to run out of poetry. I've also read a lot more poetry
than I ever anticipated (even as someone who has always loved poetry);
and through ten years in which I've faced numerous major life events and
changes, the poetry has remained a constant. I'm very grateful for it,
and I'm very happy to still be here, doing this.
This year I have the added excitement of being on a Mediterranean cruise, which means the poetry will probably be egregiously thematic. Today is the first day of the cruise, and we're docked in Athens. Tomorrow we go to visit the Oracle at Delphi, and then we sail on to several ports in Greece, then up the Adriatic to Montenegro, Croatia, and Slovenia, and then to Venice. I'm pretty excited, and also excessively prepared for the first half of the month, since I didn't bring any poetry books with me; on the other hand, we'll see what happens.
I want to start, however, with Margaret Atwood:
The poet has come back to being a poet
after decades of being virtuous instead.
Can't you be both?
No. Not in public.
You could, once,
back when God was still thundering vengeance
and liked the scent of blood,
and hadn't got around to slippery forgiveness.
Then you could scatter incense and praise,
and wear your snake necklace,
and hymn the crushed skulls of your enemies
to a pious chorus.
No deferential smiling, no baking of cookies,
no I'm a nice person really.
Welcome back, my dear.
Time to resume our vigil,
time to unlock the cellar door,
time to remind ourselves
that the god of poets has two hands:
the dextrous, the sinister.
—Margaret Atwood (b. 1939), "The poet has come back" from The Door, 2007.
This year I have the added excitement of being on a Mediterranean cruise, which means the poetry will probably be egregiously thematic. Today is the first day of the cruise, and we're docked in Athens. Tomorrow we go to visit the Oracle at Delphi, and then we sail on to several ports in Greece, then up the Adriatic to Montenegro, Croatia, and Slovenia, and then to Venice. I'm pretty excited, and also excessively prepared for the first half of the month, since I didn't bring any poetry books with me; on the other hand, we'll see what happens.
I want to start, however, with Margaret Atwood:
The poet has come back to being a poet
after decades of being virtuous instead.
Can't you be both?
No. Not in public.
You could, once,
back when God was still thundering vengeance
and liked the scent of blood,
and hadn't got around to slippery forgiveness.
Then you could scatter incense and praise,
and wear your snake necklace,
and hymn the crushed skulls of your enemies
to a pious chorus.
No deferential smiling, no baking of cookies,
no I'm a nice person really.
Welcome back, my dear.
Time to resume our vigil,
time to unlock the cellar door,
time to remind ourselves
that the god of poets has two hands:
the dextrous, the sinister.
—Margaret Atwood (b. 1939), "The poet has come back" from The Door, 2007.
Thursday, April 28, 2016
poetry is the human voice
Poetry, I tell my students,
is idiosyncratic. Poetry
is where we are ourselves
(though Sterling Brown said
"Every 'I' is a dramatic 'I'"),
digging in the clam flats
for the shell that snaps,
emptying the proverbial pocketbook.
Poetry is what you find
in the dirt in the corner,
overhear on the bus, God
in the details, the only way
to get from here to there.
Poetry (and now my voice is rising)
is not all love, love, love,
and I'm sorry the dog died.
Poetry (here I hear myself loudest)
is the human voice,
and are we not of interest to each other?
—Elizabeth Alexander (b. 1962), "Ars Poetica #100: I Believe" from American Sublime, 2005.
I taught my last class of the semester, today; as always happens near the end of poetry month, I have started to think about why I do this every year, and what it is about poetry that continues, always, to hook me; also, I really love Elizabeth Alexander.
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