Tag: poem

National Poetry Month: April 25th

April 25, 2015

Natural History by E.B. White

The spider, dropping down from twig,
Unwinds a thread of her devising:
A thin, premeditated rig
To use in rising.

And all the journey down through space,
In cool descent, and loyal-hearted,
She builds a ladder to the place
From which she started.

Thus I, gone forth, as spiders do,
In spider’s webs a truth discerning,
Attach one silken strand to you
For my returning.

(Sent by White to his wife during a 1929 business trip and published fifty years later.)

attached lovers

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

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National Poetry Month: April 24th

April 24, 2015

Novel by Arthur Rimbaud

I.

No one’s serious at seventeen.
–On beautiful nights when beer and lemonade
And loud, blinding cafes are the last thing you need
–You stroll beneath green lindens on the promenade.

Lindens smell fine on fine June nights!
Sometimes the air is so sweet that you close your eyes;
The wind brings sounds–the town is near–
And carries scents of vineyards and beer…

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National Poetry Month: April 23rd (Happy Birthday, William Shakespeare!)

April 23, 2015

Sonnet XXV by William Shakespeare

Let those who are in favor with their stars
Of public honor and proud titles boast,
Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars,
Unlooked for joy in that I honor most.
Great princes’ favorites their fair leaves spread
But as the marigold at the sun’s eye;
And in themselves their pride lies buried,
For at a frown they in their glory die.
The painful warrior famoused for fight,
After a thousand victories once foiled,
Is from the book of honor rased quite,
And all the rest forgot for which he toiled.
.   Then happy I, that love and am beloved
.   Where I may not remove nor be removed.

warrior

This poem was selected by Russell J. (Adult Services Librarian)

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National Poetry Month: April 22nd

April 22, 2015

Patience by Rabindranath Tagore

If thou speakest not I will fill my heart with thy silence and endure it.
I will keep still and wait like the night with starry vigil
and its head bent low with patience.
The morning will surely come, the darkness will vanish,
and thy voice pour down in golden streams breaking through the sky.
Then thy words will take wing in songs from every one of my birds’ nests,
and thy melodies will break forth in flowers in all my forest groves.

sunrise

This poem was selected by Kate K. (North Branch)

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National Poetry Month: April 21st

April 21, 2015

Life is Fine by Langston Hughes

I went down to the river,
I set down on the bank.
I tried to think but couldn’t,
So I jumped in and sank.

I came up once and hollered!
I came up twice and cried!
If that water hadn’t a-been so cold
I might’ve sunk and died.

But it was Cold in that water! It was cold!

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National Poetry Month: April 20th

April 20, 2015

Eating Poetry by Mark Strand

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.

The librarian does not believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.

The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.

Their eyeballs roll,
their blond legs burn like brush.
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.

She does not understand.
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
she screams.

I am a new man.
I snarl at her and bark.
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.

eat-poetry-eating-words-poet-poem

This poem was selected by Heather R. (Adult Services Librarian)

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National Poetry Month: April 18th

April 18, 2015

Spring by Edna St. Vincent Millay

To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

GrumpyOldWoman

This poem was selected by Ben R. (Adult Services Librarian)

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National Poetry Month: April 17th

April 17, 2015

The Revenant by Billy Collins

I am the dog you put to sleep,
as you like to call the needle of oblivion,
come back to tell you this simple thing:
I never liked you – not one bit.

When I licked your face,
I thought of biting off your nose.
When I watched you toweling yourself dry,
I wanted to leap and unman you with a snap.

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National Poetry Month: April 16th

April 16, 2015

A Box of Pastels by Ted Kooser

I once held on my knees a simple wooden box
in which a rainbow lay dusty and broken.
It was a set of pastels that had years before
belonged to the painter Mary Cassatt,
and all of the colors she’d used in her work
lay open before me. Those hues she’d most used,
the peaches and pinks, were worn down to stubs,
while the cool colors – violet, ultramarine –
had been set, scarcely touched, to one side.
She’d had little patience with darkness, and her heart
held only a measure of shadow. I touched
the warm dust of those colors, her tools,
and left there with light on the tips of my fingers.

Self Portrait by Mary Cassatt (1876)
Self Portrait by Mary Cassatt (1876)

This poem was selected by Laura H. (Readers’ Services)

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