Poem of the day, Oct. 28 2009

Pine
The first night at the monastery,
a moth lit on my sleeve by firelight,
long after the first frost.
A short stick of incense burns
thirty minutes, fresh thread of pine
rising through the old pine of the hours.
Summer is trapped under the thin
glass on the brook, making
the sound of an emptying bottle.
Before the long silence,
the monks [...]

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Pulitzer Prize in Poetry 1919

The Singing Wood
I followed far from the roadway
After my golden ball
(How could I tell the way it went
Where it might lie or fall?)
And coaxing vines from the Singing Wood
Came twining around my feet
And scent of flowers from the Singing Wood
Oh, it was sweet, was sweet!
Once I met a satyr,
Once I was with a faun,
Once I [...]

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Pulitzer Prize in Poetry 1918

Over the next few months, I will be posting poems by Pulitzer Prize winners in poetry, beginning with Sara Teasdale in 1918. When I am able, I will post poems from the books for which they won the prize. Teasdale won the prize for her book Love Songs.
The River
I came from the sunny valleys
And sought [...]

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Poem of the day, Oct. 26 2009

If I Were Paul
Consider how you were made.
Consider the loving geometry that sketched your bones, the passionate symmetry that sewed
flesh to your skeleton, and the cloudy zenith whence your soul descended in shimmering rivulets
across pure granite to pour as a single braided stream into the skull’s cup.
Consider the first time you conceived of justice, engendered [...]

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Poem of the day, Oct. 25 2009

Persephone The Wanderer
In the first version, Persephone
is taken from her mother
and the goddess of the earth
punishes the earth—this is
consistent with what we know of human behavior,
that human beings take profound satisfaction
in doing harm, particularly
unconscious harm:
we may call this
negative creation.
Persephone’s initial
sojourn in hell continues to be
pawed over by scholars who dispute
the sensations of the virgin:
did she [...]

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Dido and Aeneas: When I am laid in earth

When I am laid, am laid in earth, May my wrongs create
No trouble, no trouble in thy breast;
Remember me, remember me, but ah! forget my fate.
Remember me, but ah! forget my fate.
………………..
by Henry Purcell (1659-1695)

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Sadness and Peepers

From a blog post by Annie Finch:
I’m in my tent. I woke up hearing peepers and a big bullfrog. I can’t believe there is wireless in this campground. It’s a KOA in Woodstock, New York. I’m here with my daughter for a workshop called “Talking With Plants.”
Around dawn, all the peepers and frogs and [...]

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Poem of the day, Oct. 24 2009

In the Park
for Susan Koethe
This is the life I wanted, and could never see.
For almost twenty years I thought that it was enough:
That real happiness was either unreal, or lost, or endless,
And that remembrance was as close to it as I could ever come.
And I believed that deep in the past, buried in my heart
Beyond [...]

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Poem of the day, Oct. 23 2009

The First Age of the Global Market
A girl reading a letter at an open window,
the air scented with wet pavement.
She’ll curve the paper into the shape of a shell
and listen into the sea, its stammerings.
She’ll read the hand not the words: brazen
strokes of signature; letters that graph
the cursive city-scape; hasty peaks then
hesitation; then the black [...]

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Poem of the day, Oct. 22 2009

Driving Through
This could be the town you’re from,
marked only by what it’s near.
The gas station man speaks of weather
and the high school football team
just as you knew he would—
kind to strangers, happy to live here.
Tell yourself it doesn’t matter now,
you’re only driving through.
Past the sagging, empty porches
locked up tight to travelers’ stares,
toward the great [...]

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