Tag: National Poetry Month

National Poetry Month: April 10th

April 10, 2013

Piano and Scene by David Berman

A child needs to know the point of the holiday.
.
His aunt is saying grace over a decaffeinated coffee
and her daughter is reading a Russian novel
whose 45 chapters are set
on 45 consecutive Valentine’s Days.
                        .
Grandpa is telling the kids fairy tales
from Pennsylvania’s pretzel-making region
           .
and it’s hard for me to be in the mood
you need me to be in right now,

National Poetry Month: April 9th

April 9, 2013

Emplumada by Lorna Dee Cervantes

When summer ended
the leaves of snapdragons withered
taking their shrill-colored mouths with them.
They were still, so quiet. They were
violet where umber now is. She hated
and hated to see
them go. Flowers
                                      .
born when the weather was good – this
she thinks of, watching the branch of peaches
daring their ways above the fence, and further,
two hummingbirds, hovering, stuck to each other,
arcing their bodies in grim determination
to find what is good, what is
given them to find. These are warriors
                    .
distancing themselves from history.
They find peace
in the way they contain the wind and are gone.

hummingbirds

This poem was selected by Daylily Alvarez (Latino Outreach Coordinator)

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National Poetry Month: April 8th

April 8, 2013

Remembrance by M.J., a Warsaw ghetto poet (translated by Yala Korwin)

You saw blood of the homeless and innocent.
You heard the voices mocking them.
You saw a beast jumping out of the crowd,
Heard the laugh, looking into living eyes
When smoke enveloped the silence
Of other voices.
 .
You came back to your homeland,
As one comes back to life. You see a flower
Growing in the fertile, too-fertile earth.
Traces of smoke become sky-blue, like a remorse,
The smell of burning disperses,
Even the shadows pale.
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National Poetry Month: April 7th

April 7, 2013

A Bookmark by Tom Disch

Four years ago I started reading Proust.
Although I’m past the halfway point, I still
Have seven hundred pages of reduced
Type left before I reach the end. I will
Slog through. It can’t get much more dull than what
Is happening now: he’s buying crepe-de-chine
Wraps and a real, well-documented hat
For his imaginary Albertine.
Oh, what a slimy sort he must have been—
So weak, so sweetly poisonous, so fey!
Four years ago, by God!—and even then
How I was looking forward to the day
I would be able to forgive, at last,
And to forget Remembrance of Things Past.

proust

This poem was selected by Jeff B. (Readers’ Services)

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National Poetry Month: April 6th

April 6, 2013

The Saddest Poem by Pablo Neruda

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
                            .
Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.”
          .
The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.
                                           .
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

National Poetry Month: April 5th

April 5, 2013

Harriet by Robert Lowell

A repeating fly, blueback, thumbthick–so gross,
it seems apocalyptic in our house–
whams back and forth across the nursery bed
manned by a madhouse of stuffed animals,
not one a fighter. It is like a plane
dusting apple orchards or Arabs on the screen–
one of the mighty… one of the helpless. It
bumbles and bumps its brow on this and that,
making a short, unhealthy life the shorter.
I kill it, and another instant’s added
to the horrifying mortmain of
ephemera: keys, drift, sea-urchin shells,
you packrat off with joy… a dead fly swept
under the carpet, wrinkling to fulfillment.

housefly

This poem was selected by Russell J. (Readers’ Services)

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National Poetry Month: April 4th

April 4, 2013

A Dictionary in the Dark by Naomi Shihab Nye

A retired general said
“the beautiful thing about it”
discussing war.
We were making “progress”
in our war effort.
“The appropriate time to launch the bombers”
pierced the A section with artillery and arrows as
“awe” huddled in a corner
clutching its small chest.
Someone else repeated, “in harm’s way,”
strangely popular lately,
and “weapons of mass destruction”
felt gravely confused about their identity.
“Friendly” gasped. Fierce and terminal.
It had never agreed to sit beside fire, never.

PEACE WAR

This poem was selected by Genevieve G. (Reference Librarian)

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National Poetry Month: April 3rd

April 3, 2013

The Angel by William Blake

I dreamt a dream! What can it mean?
And that I was a maiden Queen
Guarded by an Angel mild:
Witless woe was ne’er beguiled!
.
And I wept both night and day,
And he wiped my tears away;
And I wept both day and night,
And hid from him my heart’s delight.
.
So he took his wings, and fled;
Then the morn blushed rosy red.
I dried my tears, and armed my fears
With ten-thousand shields and spears.
.
Soon my Angel came again;
I was armed, he came in vain;
For the time of youth was fled,
And grey hairs were on my head.
.

guardianangel1

This poem was selected by Lesley W. (Head of Adult Services)

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National Poetry Month: April 2nd

April 2, 2013

Happiness by Raymond Carver

So early it’s still almost dark out.
I’m near the window with coffee,
and the usual early morning stuff
that passes for thought.
When I see the boy and his friend
walking up the road
to deliver the newspaper.
They wear caps and sweaters,
and one boy has a bag over his shoulder.
They are so happy
they aren’t saying anything, these boys.
I think if they could, they would take
each other’s arm.
It’s early in the morning,
and they are doing this thing together.
They come on, slowly.
The sky is taking on light,
though the moon still hangs pale over the water.
Such beauty that for a minute
death and ambition, even love,
doesn’t enter into this.
Happiness. It comes on
unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really,
any early morning talk about it.
.

This poem was selected by Susan R. (Collection Development Librarian)

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National Poetry Month: April 1st

April 1, 2013

Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

statue

This poem was selected by Russell J. (Readers’ Services)

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