Tag: poetry

National Poetry Month: April 27th

April 27, 2012

Thanatopsis by William Cullen Bryant

     To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;—
Go forth, under the open sky, and list
To Nature’s teachings, while from all around—
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air—

National Poetry Month: April 26th

April 26, 2012

Stays by Jill Alexander Essbaum

Everything alludes to the mood of us.
This color, for instance, the color of you.
Blood-blue like the walls of the house we share.
Blue-black like the ravels in my hair.
.
Everything habituates the shatter of our glass.
This tiger of yours that mauls on command.
Or yours, the upper hand of dispute.
The furnace you promised to fix but good—
.
But didn’t. But haven’t. Or: Won’t. Ain’t gonna.
A tainted summer of untoward words.
The unnerved synapse ‘twixt said and heard.
The lapse in my verve,
.
The slap of your verbs.
How every well we’ve dowsed runs dry.
The drowsy oh wells, the soused betrothals,
The stab-wounds we dressed up in bedclothes.
.
Everything augments the flaw of us.
The lusters we lack, the lusts we’ve glutted,
The delusions we’ve slutted on analyst’s couches.
Your Stalinist urges. My purges. I reach
.
For the one-two punch of panic pills.
You sit and sort the bills. A pair of parallel hells.
The gods that goad us know our names.
The books you read disclaim my pain–
.
And everything stays the same, the same.

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

Poetry Copyright Notice

National Poetry Month: April 25th

April 25, 2012

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 bum 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.

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

Poetry Copyright Notice

National Poetry Month: April 24th

April 24, 2012

“Hope is the thing with feathers” by Emily Dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –
 .
And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash a little Bird
That kept so many warm –
 .
I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.

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

Poetry Copyright Notice

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

April 23, 2012

Sonnet XXII by William Shakespeare

My glass shall not persuade me I am old,
So long as youth and thou are of one date;
But when in thee time’s furrows I behold,
Then look I death my days should expiate.
For all that beauty that doth cover thee,
Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,
Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me:
How can I then be elder than thou art?
O! therefore, love, be of thyself so wary
As I, not for myself, but for thee will;
Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary
As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.
    Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain,
    Thou gav’st me thine not to give back again.

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

Poetry Copyright Notice

National Poetry Month: April 22nd (Happy Earth Day!)

April 22, 2012

Having Intended to Merely Pick on an Oil Company, the Poem Goes Awry by Bob Hicok

Never before have I so resembled British Petroleum.
They–it?–are concerned about the environment.
I–it?–am concerned about the environment.
They–him?–convey their concern through commercials,
in which a man talks softly about the importance
of the Earth.  I–doodad?–convey my concern
through poems, in which my fingers type softly
about the importance of the Earth.  They–oligarchs?–
have painted their slogans green.  I–ineffectual
left-leaning emotional black hole of a self-semaphore?–
recycle.  Isn’t a corporation technically a person Continue reading “National Poetry Month: April 22nd (Happy Earth Day!)” →

National Poetry Month: April 21st

April 21, 2012

Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Glory be to God for dappled things–
  For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
    For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
  Landscape plotted and pieced–fold, fallow, and plough;
    And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
  Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
    With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
                 Praise him.
.

This poem was selected by Martha M. (Children’s Services)

Poetry Copyright Notice

National Poetry Month: April 20th

April 20, 2012

“What horror to awake at night” by Lorine Niedecker

What horror to awake at night
And in the dimness see the light.
        Time is white
        mosquitoes bite
I’ve spent my life on nothing.
.
The thought that stings.  How are you, Nothing,
Sitting around with Something’s wife.
        Buzz and burn
        is all I learn
I’ve spent my life on nothing.
.
I’m pillowed and padded, pale and puffing
Lifting household stuffing–
        carpets, dishes
        benches, fishes
I’ve spent my life in nothing.

This poem was selected by Rick K. (Children’s Librarian)

Poetry Copyright Notice

National Poetry Month: April 19th

April 19, 2012

Angels by Katha Pollitt

They thought the job would be more musical:
Rainbows and trumpets.  They’d burst
through clouds of marble streaked with flame
.
and offer blinding demonstrations
of the ontological proof of God.
People would look up and say “Ineffable!”
.
Instead, they swooped through the mall
calling Ashley? Pammy?
fished Mrs. Baines’ wedding ring from the drain again, Continue reading “National Poetry Month: April 19th” →

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