Poem of the Week 2/28/2005: In My Craft or Sullen Art

In My Craft or Sullen Art

In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.

Not for the proud man apart
>From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art

Dylan Thomas


Happy Monday, all! I hope that everything is going well for everybody, or, since that is a little idealistic, I hope that something is going well for everybody. Anyway, a first reading of this poem makes it feel simple and clear, but, as happens so often, looking closer reveals how complex it really is. If we slow way down and ask why this craft is sullen, or look at the rhyme structure (there are only two true couplets here - the rest are split up or slanted - "psalms" and "arms," "heart" and "apart," and then I might argue that the poem is circular, and that the word "art" acts as a sort of strange broken couplet with which to frame the poem). Actually, I think that the rhyming holds a lot of insight into the poem. The couplets are kind of like lovers - they point us to think differently about what a lover is. Does a lover have to be with somebody else to be a lover? Maybe that's why lovers have their arms "round the griefs of the ages;" they are alone, and struggle with the same grief that has touched thousands of years worth of humans. At any rate, it is certainly an interesting poem, and a justly famous one. Have a nice day!

Sarah

Poem of the Week 2/21/2005: A Martian Sends A Postcard Home

A Martian Sends A Postcard Home

Caxtons* are mechanical birds with many wings
and some are treasured for their markings --

they cause the eyes to melt
or the body to shriek without pain.

I have never seen one fly, but
sometimes they perch on the hand.

Mist is when the sky is tired of flight
and rests its soft machine on ground:

then the world is dim and bookish
like engravings under tissue paper.

Rain is when the earth is television.
It has the property of making colours darker.

Model T** is a room with the lock inside --
a key is turned to free the world

for movement, so quick there is a film
to watch for anything missed.

But time is tied to the wrist
or kept in a box, ticking with impatience.

In homes, a haunted apparatus sleeps,
that snores when you pick it up.

If the ghost cries, they carry it
to their lips and soothe it to sleep

with sounds. And yet they wake it up
deliberately, by tickling with a finger.

Only the young are allowed to suffer
openly. Adults go to a punishment room

with water but nothing to eat.
They lock the door and suffer the noises

alone. No one is exempt
and everyone's pain has a different smell.

At night when all the colours die,
they hide in pairs

and read about themselves --
in colour, with their eyelids shut.

Craig Raine


*i.e. books, which William Caxton (ca. 1422-1491) was the first to print in English
**i.e. automobiles

This poem feels right for tonight. And yes I am getting impatient about the poem of the week - sending it out on what is technically monday but is really Sunday's last gasp. But anyway. This poem is interesting and twisted and sort of beautiful. It's funny and fascinating, and a little sad at the end. Maybe what's appealing about it right now is that I am seeing myself reflected in it - this Martian doesn't know exactly what everything is around him, but he is lacing the best words and ideas he can to it. I particularly enjoy the idea of a cat as an apparatus. I also love that Raine asks us to think about the things around us, and notice what is going on with the colors when it rains. And, for that matter, who is this Martian? Why does he understand what it means to read, in one sense, at the end of the poem and not at the beginning? What does this say about our values/skills? Is it just a matter of his not knowing the right word? I think that imagination is very important in this poem both in the images it presents and as a topic the alien broaches. So I hope that you like this poem for this week!!

Sarah

Poem of the Week 2/14/2005: Anne Hathaway

Anne Hathaway*

"Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed."
(from Shakespeare's will)

The bed we loved in was a spinning world
of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas
where he would dive for pearls. My lover's words
were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses on these lips;
my body now a softer rhyme to his, now echo, now assonance; his touch
a verb dancing in the centre of a noun.
Some nights, I dreamed he'd written me, the bed
a page beneath his writer's hands. Romance
and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste.
In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on,
dribbling their prose. My living laughing love -
I hold him in the casket of my widow's head
as he held me upon that next best bed.

Carol Ann Duffy


*Anne Hathaway was Shakespeare's wife

Happy Valentine's Day, everybody! I have known that I was going to do this poem today for a while, and I am awake now and very much wanted to send it out, so here you all go! This is one of my favorite love poems ever - it is pretty neat to give Shakespeare a love poem when he has given us so many. I feel like it gives Shakespeare a more tangible form than his poems do standing alone, because suddenly there is something to connect the love too. The reciprocity gives his words more context; they were written for somebody, those emotions existed. The way Duffy blends the lines between language and love is interesting, too. In fact, now that I look at the poem again, I see that transformation sort of runs through the poem - words and images to physical love to words again. I love, too, how in the bed, his words, and her love, Shakespeare is still alive and laughing....Anyway. I hope that your respective weeks are all wonderful, and happy valentine's day, and goodnight!

Sarah

Poem of the Week 2/7/2005: The Illiterate

The Illiterate

Touching your goodness, I am like a man
Who turns a letter over in his hand
And you might think this was because the hand
Was unfamiliar but, truth is, the man Has never had a letter from anyone;
And now he is both afraid of what it means
And ashamed because he has no other means
To find out what it says to ask someone.

His uncle could have left the farm to him, Or his parents died before he sent them word,
Or the dark girl changed and want him for beloved.
Afraid and letter-proud, he keeps it with him.
What would you call his feeling for the words
That keep him rich and orphaned and beloved?

William Meredith



Hello - it's Monday and PotW time again! This poem is so tender and soft and humble and amazed that it somehow felt perfect for this week and this day, especially. I have just been feeling really open and relaxed for the last six days or so, so yeah. There you go. There is a lot of empathy in this poem, I think - interesting how it creates empathy for both the main character and the narrator when it is about goodness (a good bit of which, in my mind, is empathy). It's also interesting that empathy occurs with somebody ashamed and afraid and proud; it brings into question what makes us empathize with people, and what in ourselves we find to be so...resonant isn't the word. Maybe tender but I already used that. If you think of a better one, let me know. So that's all for this week!

Poem of the Week 1/31/2005: Love Calls Us to the Things of This World

Love Calls Us to the Things of This World

The eyes open to a cry of pulleys,
And spirited from sleep, the astounded soul
Hangs for a moment bodiless and simple
As false dawn.
Outside the open window
The morning air is all awash with angels.

Some are in bed-sheets, some are in blouses,
Some are in smocks: but truly there they are.
Now they are rising together in calm swells
Of halcyon feeling, filling whatever they wear
With the deep joy of their impersonal breathing;

Now they are flying in place, conveying
The terrible speed of their omnipresence, moving
And staying like white water; and now of a sudden
They swoon down into so rapt a quiet
That nobody seems to be there.
The soul shrinks

From all that it is about to remember,
From the punctual rape of every blessed day,
And cries.
"Oh, let there be nothing on earth but laundry,
Nothing but rosy hands in the rising steam
And clear dances done in the sight of heaven."

Yet, as the sun acknowledges
With a warm look the world's hunks and colors,
The soul descends once more in bitter love
To accept the waking body, saying now
In a changed voice as the man yawns and rises,

"Brung them down from their ruddy gallows;
Let there be clean linen for the backs of thieves;
Let lovers go fresh and sweet to be undone,
And the heaviest nuns walk in a pure floating
Of dark habits,
keeping their difficult balance."


- Richard Wilbur


Hey everybody! The poem of the week is coming in at 1:30 in the morning my time, because I am sick of doing homework and I am feeling a little down, so it's poem time! Doing this one has lifted my spirits considerably, I must say. Some things to think about with this poem: the diction is very reminiscent of laundry, especially throughout the first half of the poem; the presence of angels all around us, listening and unseen by the body (though worn by it); hope starting every morning; how love brings the soul into the body every morning....I happen to think that the moments waking up on a soft day are some of the most beautiful, comfortable ones I can think of. So hopefully tomorrow morning or even any morning will be like that in the near future - not cold light or cloud-light but buttery light. Okay - good night! Or good morning because that's when all of you sensible people will be getting this poem!

Sarah

Poem of the Week 1/24/2005: Caedmon

Caedmon

All others talked as if
talk were a dance.
Clodhopper I, with clumsy feet
would break the gliding ring.
Early I learned to
hunch myself
close by the door:
then when the talk began
I'd wipe my
mouth and wend
unnoticed back to the barn
to be with the warm beasts,
dumb among body sounds
of the simple ones.
I'd see by a twist
of lit rush the motes
of gold moving
from shadow to shadow
slow in the wake
of deep untroubled sighs.
The cows
munched or stirred or were still. I
was at home and lonely,
both in good measure. Until
the sudden angel affrighted me -- light effacing
my feeble beam,
a forest of torches, feathers of flame, sparks upflying:
but the cows as before
were calm, and nothing was burning,
nothing but I, as that hand of fire
touched my lips and scorched my tongue
and pulled my voice
into the ring of the dance.

Denise Levertov



hello Everybody! Okay, to start, I have to say that this is one of my favorite poems. As for some background - Caedmon was the first English pastoral poet. My Norton Anthology of Poetry tells me that "Caedmon, an illiterate herdsman...miraculously recieved the gift of religious song.... At feasts where the farmhands took turns singing and playing the harp, Caedmon would withdraw to his bed in the stable whenever the harp was passed his way. One night a man appeared to him in a dream and commanded, 'Caedmon, sing me something.' When Caedmon protested that he didn't know how to sing, the man insisted and told him to sing about the Creation. At this, Caedmon immediately began to sing verses in praise of God the Creator, which he had never heard before [sic]." So that's his story of poetic inspiration.

It's amazing how many stories of poetic beginning I have run into since coming to college; it's not entirely surprising, considering how many poets will write about the birth of poetry, and the development of self within that inspiration. Today in Brit Lit we read Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh, a kunstlerroman, or novel of artistic development. Wordsworth's The Prelude addresses this idea of artistic development, as does Caedmon, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and a slew of other works. It's interesting to look at beginnings, and causality, I guess. It is interesting to me; the idea of interdependency of variables (lifted from Gaddis' The Landscape of History) is crucial in literature - it's one of my favorite things about it, actually: the fact that everything relates to almost anything else, and that a close reading of the text will provide so many different interpretations. And that those contrasting views aren't right or wrong. They simply (or complexly, as it were) are, all at the same time. I am rambling, but it's just because I am excited and invigorated - I just had Brit Lit - my best class by far. So overall I chose this poem (a) because I really like it and (b) because it celebrates poetic expression, beginnings, inspiration, thought and beauty.

Sarah

CHANGE in Poem of the Week!!!

A Blessing

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more, they begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.

James Wright

I changed this poem of the week after seeing a Martin Luther King Jr. gospel sermon discussing positive thinking, love, and what you can do in the world. So I changed the PotW into something that would give a positive message to the world. If anyone has my original comments on this, I would greatly appreciate your sending them to me! Thank you.

Sarah

Poem of the Week 1/17/2005: The Second Coming; A Blessing

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?


William Butler Yeats



Hello everybody! Since it is a Monday, technically (about 1:15 am in WA), I thought that I would send out the Poem of the Week! And let you all know that I am back at college safe, sound, and happy as a clam. In the wet wet air. I felt that I couldn't wait until tomorrow to send out the poem, because we just finished a VERY long game of Risk, and I needed something poetic to calm my warring soul. Or some BS like that. Mostly I didn't feel like waiting for tomorrow, because sending the POW out is one of my favorite activities, for some reason. I thought this poem especially appropriate this week in light of Mr Bush's coming second inaguration. I had been thinking of this one for this week for quite some time, and am pleased to finally be able to send it out. I apologise if this offends anybody's political beliefs. If you want to ignore this email or send me a nasty (yet intelligently constructed/thought out) response, I would be more than willing to read it. Not like the poem of the week is some national publication that could actually affect anything. Like I said, I mostly do this to amuse myself and then I hope that others will take a little enjoyment from it. Oh yeah and I think this poem is one of Yeats' more major works, and good to at least read. If nothing else, the gutteral sounds and somewhat chafing imagery could carry it as one of my favorites. So, again, sorry, and next week's, I promise, will be back on the usual politic-free track.

Sarah


************ CHANGE IN POEM OF THE WEEK!!!

A Blessing

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more, they begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.

James Wright

I changed this poem of the week after seeing a Martin Luther King Jr. gospel sermon discussing positive thinking, love, and what you can do in the world. So I changed the PotW into something that would give a positive message to the world. If anyone has my original comments on this, I would greatly appreciate your sending them to me! Thank you.

Sarah

Poem of the Week 1/10/2005: Old Bachelor Brother

Old Bachelor Brother

Here from his prominent but thankfully
uncentral position at the head of the church --
a flanking member of the groom's large party --
he stands and waits to watch the women march

up the wide aisle, just the way they did
at last night's long and leaden-joked rehearsal.
Only this time, it's all changed. There's now a crowd,
of course, and walls of lit stained glass, and Purcell

ringing from the rented organist,
and yet the major difference, the one
that hits his throat as a sort of smoky thirst,
is how, so far away, the church's main

doors are flung back, uncovering a square
of sun that streams into the narthex, so that
the women who materialize there
do so in blinding silhouette,

and these are not the women he has helloed
and kissed, and who have bored, ignored, or teased him,
but girls -- whose high, garlanded hair goes haloed
by the noon-light . . . The years have dropped from them.

One by one they're bodied forth, edged with flame,
as new as flame, destined to part the sea
of faces on each side, and approaching him
in all their passionate anonymity.

Brad Leithauser [1990]

Well, I chose this poem because I was at my cousin's wedding this weekend, so I have been thinking about weddings and marriage a lot. Going to the wedding helped me renew my faith in the institution of marriage just a little bit. I guess I have seen so many endings of marriages that I forget the promise a beginning holds, and that two people actually love each other enough to want to live their whole lives together and get old and die together. To me, that desire redeems marriage somewhat; the mere fact that they will promise to do that just makes me feel better or something. About marriage. Because so many of them break up or are sour or dead, and gay people can't even get married at all. At any rate, I think the poem's wedding helps the bachelor brother find hope again, too. Or freshness or renewal. So - just some things to think about. Good night!

Sarah

Poem of the Week 1/3/2005: The Dark Forest

The Dark Forest

Dark is the forest and deep, and overhead
Hang stars like seeds of light
In vain, though not since they were sown was bred
Anything more bright.

And evermore mighty multitudes ride
About, nor enter in;
Of the other multitudes that dwell inside
Never yet was one seen.

The forest foxglove is purple, the marguerite
Outside is gold and white,
Nor can those that pluck either blossom greet
The others, day or night.

Edward Thomas


Hello! I have been thinking about putting this poem up for a while now, so here it is! I don't really have
anything to say about it - I am not sure how deeply I understand it, but sometimes you don't have to be
so cerebral about things; sometimes they can just wash over you. I hope that this poem can do that or
you, and I hope that you enjoy it!

Sarah

Poem of the Week 12/27/2004: Black Rook in Rainy Weather

Black Rook in Rainy Weather

On the stiff twig up there
Hunches a wet black rook
Arranging and rearranging its feathers in the rain.
I do not expect miracle
Or an accident

To set the sight on fire
In my eye, nor seek
Any more in the desultory weather some design,
But let spotted leaves fall as they fall,
Without ceremony, or portent

Although, I admit, I desire,
Occasionally, some backtalk
From the mute sky, I can't honestly complain:
A certain minor light may still
Leap incandescent

Out of kitchen table or chair
As if a celestial burning took
Possession of the most obtuse objects now and then --
Thus hallowing an interval
Otherwise inconsequent

By bestowing largesse, honor,
One might say love. At any rate, I now walk
Wary (for it could happen
Even in this dull, ruinous landscape) ; skeptical,
Yet politic; ignorant

Of whatever angel may choose to flare
Suddenly at my elbow. I only know that a rook
Ordering its black feathers can so shine
As to seize my senses, haul
My eyelids up, and grant

A brief respite from fear
Of total neutrality. With luck,
Trekking stubborn through this season
Of fatigue, I shall
Patch together a content

Of sorts. Miracles occur,
If you care to call those spasmodic
Tricks of radiance miracles. The wait's begun again,
The long wait for the angel,
For that rare, random descent.

Sylvia Plath



I was hoping to find a poem about rebirth, the New Year coming up and
all, but
the few that I did find
were contrived, so I just looked for something that resonated with me. I like
this poem - I like the idea
of hope being able to spring itself upon us without warning, of miracles (or
accidents) happening
everywhere. So anyway, hopefully everybody had a wonderful Christmas and is
ready for the New Year!
exclamation point!

Poem of the Week 12/20/2004: Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Frost



Hello all! This poem was suggested to me by a friend (credit goes to Matt, for all of you UPSers), and it
is just the right poem for this week. It feels like friends, family, woods, snow, love, comfort, work, and
sleep. Well, I hope that this break is going well for all of you and happy
holidays!!!

Sarah

Poem of the Week 12/14/2004: Where the Sidewalk Ends

Where the Sidewalk Ends

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.

Shel Silverstein



I know that we are not necessarily in the realm of great great wonderful literature here, but isn't it the season of light? And plus I love this poem. I don't know about anybody else, but I am really stressed over finals and life in general, so here is something to remind us of a lighter time, of nostagia and childhood, of delicious solitude and what my friend here calls wonderful expectation. So happy holidays (part 1)!

love sarah

Missing: PotW 12/7/2004

If any of you have this, please send it to me - thank you!

Sarah

Poem of the Week 11/30/2004: Snowdrops

Snowdrops

Do you know what I was, how I lived? You know
what despair is; then
winter should have meaning for you.

I did not expect to survive,
earth suppressing me. I didn't expect
to waken again, to feel
in damp earth my body
able to respond again, remembering
after so long how to open again
in the cold light
of earliest spring--

afraid, yes, but among you again
crying yes risk joy

in the raw wind of the new world.


-Louise Gluck

Poem of the Week 11/23/2004: Night Poem

Night Poem

There is nothing to be afraid of,
it is only the wind
changing to the east, it is only
your father the thunder
your mother the rain

In this country of water
with its beige moon damp as a mushroom,
its drowned stumps and long birds
that swim, where the moss grows
on all sides of the tree
and your shadow is not your shadow
but your reflection,

your true parents disappear
when the curtain covers your door.
We are the others,
the ones from under the lake
who stand silently beside your bed
with our heads of darkness.
We have come to cover you
with red wool,
with our tears and distant whispers.

You rock in the rain's arms
the chilly ark of your sleep,
while we wait, your night
father and mother
with our cold hands and dead flashlight,
knowing we are only
the wavering shadows thrown
by one candle, in this echo
you will hear twenty years later.

-Margaret Atwood

Hey everybody! I do this thing at my dorm where I put a different poem on the week every week, and so I have decided to send it out as well. Feel free to either read or not read this email - but you should let me know if you aren't going to read it in the future so that I don't bother you by sending it to you! If you have any suggestions, also feel free. Anyways, I hope you are all well!

- Sarah

Poem of the Week 11/16/2004: Sea of Faith

Sea of Faith

Once when I was teaching “Dover Beach”
to a class of freshmen, a young woman
raised her hand and said, “I'm confused
about this 'Sea of Faith.' “ “Well,” I said,
“let's talk about it. We probably need
to talk a bit about figurative language.
What confuses you about it?”
“I mean, is it a real sea?” she asked.
“You mean, is it a real body of water
that you could point to on a map
or visit on a vacation?”
“Yes,” she said. “Is it a real sea?”
Oh Christ, I thought, is this where we are?
Next year I'll be teaching them the alphabet
and how to sound words out.
I'll have to teach them geography, apparently,
before we can move on to poetry.
I'll have to teach them history, too-
a few weeks on the Dark Ages might be instructive.
“Yes,” I wanted to say, “it is.
It is a real sea. In fact it flows right into the Sea of Ignorance
IN WHICH YOU ARE DROWNING.
Let me throw you a Rope of Salvation
before the Sharks of Desire gobble you up.
Let me hoist you back up onto this Ship of Fools
so that we might continue our search
for the Fountain of Youth. Here, take a drink
of this. It's fresh from the River of Forgetfulness.”
But of course I didn't say any of that.
I tried to explain in such a way
as to protect her from humiliation,
tried to explain that poets
often speak of things that don't exist.
It was only much later that I wished
I could have answered differently,
only after I'd betrayed myself
and been betrayed that I wished
it was true, wished there really was a Sea of Faith
that you could wade out into,
dive under its blue and magic waters,
hold your breath, swim like a fish
down to the bottom, and then emerge again
able to believe in everything, faithful
and unafraid to ask even the simplest of questions,
happy to have them simply answered.

John Brehm

Poem of the Week 11/9/2005: The Brain -- is wider than the Sky --

The Brain -- is wider than the Sky --
For -- put them side by side --
The one the other will contain
With ease -- and You -- beside --

The Brain is deeper than the sea --
For -- hold them -- Blue to Blue --
The one the other will absorb --
As Sponges -- Buckets -- do --

The Brain is just the weight of God --
For -- Heft them -- Pound for Pound --
And they will differ -- if they do --
As Syllable from Sound --

Emily Dickinson

Poem of the Week 11/2/2004: When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer

When I heard the learn’d astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

Walt Whitman

Poem of the Week 10/26/2004: Poetry

Poetry

And it was at that age...Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no, they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.

I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
I felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind.

Pablo Neruda