Pulitzer Prize in Poetry 1923

strong>Wild Swans
I looked in my heart while the wild swans went over.
And what did I see I had not seen before?
Only a question less or a question more;
Nothing to match the flight of wild birds flying.
Tiresome heart, forever living and dying,
House without air, I leave you and lock your door.
Wild swans, come over the town, [...]

Read Full Post »

Pulitzer Prize in Poetry 1922

Credo
I cannot find my way: there is no star
In all the shrouded heavens anywhere;
And there is not a whisper in the air
Of any living voice but one so far
That I can hear it only as a bar
Of lost, imperial music, played when fair
And angel fingers wove, and unaware,
Dead leaves to garlands where no roses are.
No, [...]

Read Full Post »

Pulitzer Prize in Poetry 1919

strong>Falltime
Gold of a ripe oat straw, gold of a southwest moon,
Canada thistle blue and flimmering larkspur blue,
Tomatoes shining in the October sun with red hearts,
Shining five and six in a row on a wooden fence,
Why do you keep wishes on your faces all day long,
Wishes like women with half-forgotten lovers going to
new cities? What is [...]

Read Full Post »

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 [...]

Read Full Post »

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 [...]

Read Full Post »

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 [...]

Read Full Post »

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 [...]

Read Full Post »

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 [...]

Read Full Post »

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 [...]

Read Full Post »

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 [...]

Read Full Post »