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Everything that needs to be said has
already been said. But, since no one was
listening, everything must be said again.
─ André Gide,
1947 Nobel Prize in
Literature winner
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13 poets born this week
from the 1750s to the 1950s,
some sad, some funny,
some wise, and some wicked
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January 21
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1904 – R. P. Blackmur born in Springfield, Massachusetts as Richard Palmer Blackmur; American literary critic, poet, editor, and playwright. He was managing editor of the literary quarterly Hound & Horn (1928-1930), published The Double Agent: essays in craft and elucidation in 1935, and taught creative writing and English literature at Princeton University (1940-1965). His poetry collections include From Jordan’s Delight, The Second World, and The Good European. He died at age 61 in 1965.
By Luckless Blood
by R. P. Blackmur
.
Soft to the river falls the millet field
moulding and giving to the wind, as might
an ordinary woman slowly yield
by moonlight her own summer to the night.
Alas, this tardy love that comes elate,
irradiant sun-flash on cresting seas,
invades and wastes, as if by chosen spate
not luckless blood, my quiet granaries.
.
I am at loss, all manners and no man,
all aching breath, all queasy near the heart,
the fond brain, vacillating plan to plan.
All’s torment here, dull hope and under-smart –
unless, O sweeping harvest, sleeping flood,
the old love grow in me and find me good.
.
“By Luckless Blood” from Poems of R. P. Blackmur, © 1977 by Princeton University Press
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1942 – Cheon Yang-hui born in Busan, South Korea; Korean poet and essayist; she graduated in the 1960s from Ewha Womans University in Seoul, and has published several poetry collections, including Old Alley; Too Many Mouths; and Sometimes I Stand Motionless, but they haven’t yet been translated into English. Her works appear in translation in Korean Literature Today, Winter 1999 issue and Poems, volume 59. She has won several Korean literary prizes, including the 1998 Hyundae Munhak (Contemporary Literature) Award for “Old Alley.”
Rice
by Cheon Yang-hui
.
To you who eat a lot of rice because you are lonely,
To you who sleep a lot because you are bored,
To you who cry a lot because you are sad,
I write this down.
Chew on your feelings that are cornered
like you would chew on rice.
Anyway, life is something that you need to digest.
.
– translator not credited
“Rice” was originally published in Japanese in her collection, Sorghum Field of the Heart, © 1994
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January 22
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1922 – Howard Moss born, American poet, dramatist, and critic; poetry editor of The New Yorker (1948-1987). He wrote three plays, including The Folding Green. Among his ten poetry collections are: The Toy Fair; A Swimmer in Summer; Second Nature; Selected Poems (co-winner of the 1972 National Book Award for Poetry with Frank O’Hara); and Rules of Sleep. Moss died of cardiac arrest at age 65 in September 1987.
The Cardinal
by Howard Moss
.
With summer eggs the birds repeat themselves:
Nest-building territories, wars of air,
Under the eaves another nursery
Of pipes and whinneys, of voiced demands.
One night a cardinal let go with song
Standing on a tree for long, red minutes,
And singing its heart out (so we thought) its red
More plush with every breath, with every change
Of light, the summer evening coming on
Before it silently flew into the trees.
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“The Cardinal” © 1987 by Howard Moss appeared in Poetry magazine’s October/November 1987 issue
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1949 – Cilla McQueen born Priscilla Muriel McQueen in Birmingham, England; her family moved to New Zealand when she was four; New Zealand poet and artist. She won the New Zealand Book Award for Poetry in 1983, 1989, and 1991, and the Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in Poetry in 2010. She served as New Zealand’s Poet Laureate (2009-2011). Among her many volumes of poetry are: Homing In; Wild Sweets; Markings: Poems and Drawings; Fire-Penny; An Island; and Qualia. In 2016, she published In a Slant Light: A Poet’s memoir.
Beacon (Elements 2)
by Cilla McQueen
.
Discovered in lenses,
bent around stars.
.
I leap island to island,
altar to altar.
.
Breathe life into things,
one word to another,
.
Sweep the night seas
with a quartz shiver.
.
My feet of quicksilver
dancing on water.
.
“Beacon (Elements 2)” from The Radio Room, © 2011 by Cilla McQueen – Otago University Press
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January 23
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1859 – Katharine Tynan born in Dublin, Ireland; prolific Irish novelist, poet, and short story writer, whose work was greatly influenced by Roman Catholicism, Irish patriotism, and Celtic mythology. She wrote over 100 novels; five autobiographical volumes, and over a dozen books of poetry, including Shamrocks, Ballads and Lyrics, Irish Poems; The Flower of Youth; The Flower of Peace; and Late Songs. She died at age 72 in April 1931.
Turn O' The Year
by Katharine Tynan
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This is the time when bit by bit
The days begin to lengthen sweet
And every minute gained is joy -
And love stirs in the heart of a boy.
.
This is the time the sun, of late
Content to lie abed till eight,
Lifts up betimes his sleepy head -
And love stirs in the heart of a maid.
.
This is the time we dock the night
Of a whole hour of candlelight;
When song of linnet and thrush is heard -
And love stirs in the heart of a bird.
.
This is the time when sword-blades green,
With gold and purple damascene,
Pierce the brown crocus-bed a-row -
And love stirs in a heart I know.
.
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1930 – Derek Walcott born on Saint Lucia Island in the West Indies; Caribbean poet and playwright. He wrote poetry from an early age – a local paper published one of his poems when he was 14 – but he originally studied painting. In 1962, his first major collection of poems, In a Green Night: Poems 1948–1960, was published by the prestigious Jonathan Cape publishing house. Walcott resisted being labeled a “black writer” insisting that he was a Caribbean writer. From the 1970s on, Walcott taught creative writing at top U.S. universities like Harvard and Columbia, while also publishing collections of his plays and poetry. In the mid-1970s, he had an affair with Norline Metivier, a young dancer in one of his plays. He married her in 1976, but it quickly ended in divorce. From 1981 to 2007, he taught literature and creative writing at Boston University, and established the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre to promote plays by new playwrights. In 1987, Walcott met Sigrid Nama, a Danish-Flemish-American art dealer, and they mostly lived together for the rest of his life. In spite of his success, both his professional and domestic lives were stormy and complicated. He was often short of money until he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992. Derek Walcott died at age 87, after a long illness, on the island of Santa Lucia, in March 2017.
Map of the New World
by Derek Walcott
.
I Archipelagoes
.
At the end of this sentence, rain will begin.
At the rain's edge, a sail.
.
Slowly the sail will lose sight of islands;
into a mist will go the belief in harbours
of an entire race.
.
The ten-years war is finished.
Helen's hair, a grey cloud.
Troy, a white ashpit
by the drizzling sea.
.
The drizzle tightens like the strings of a harp.
A man with clouded eyes picks up the rain
and plucks the first line of the Odyssey.
.
“Map of the New World” from Collected Poems 1948-1984, ©1986 by Derek Walcott – Farrar, Strauss & Giroux
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January 24
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1936 – Marilou Awiakta born in Knoxville, Tennessee, but grew up in nearby Oak Ridge, one of the sites of the Manhattan Project; American writer, poet, essayist, and children’s author. Her heritage is part Appalachian and part Eastern Band Cherokee, but she is not a citizen of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. She graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1958 receiving a B.A. magna cum laude, in both English and French. Known for Abiding Appalachia: Where Mountain and Atom Meet; her children’s book, Rising Fawn and the Fire Mystery; and SELU: Seeking the Corn-Mother’s Wisdom. She has been honored with the 1989 Distinguished Tennessee Writer Award and the 2000 Appalachian Heritage Writer’s Award.
When Earth Becomes an “It”
by Marilou Awiakta
.
When the people call Earth “Mother,”
They take with love
And with love give back
So that all may live.
.
When the people call Earth “it,”
They use her
Consume her strength.
Then the people die.
.
Already the sun is hot
Out of season.
Our Mother’s breast
Is going dry.
.
She is taking all green
Into her heart
And will not turn back
Until we call her
By her name.
.
“When Earth Becomes an “It” from SELU: Seeking the Corn-Mother’s Wisdom, © 1993 by Marilou Awiakta – Fulcrum Publishing
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January 25
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1759 – Robert Burns born in the village of Alloway in South Ayrshire, Scotland; widely regarded as the Bard of Scotland, a poet and lyricist, whose birthday has been celebrated throughout Scotland and by poetry lovers around the world with Burns Night suppers and recitations since 1802. He is the author of 370 poems and 346 songs. Robert Burns died at age 37 from a rheumatic heart condition in July 1796.
Ye Flowery Banks (Bonie Doon)
by Robert Burns
.
Ye flowery banks o’ bonie Doon,
How can ye blume sae fair?
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae fu’ o’ care?
Thou’ll break my heart, thou bonie bird,
That sings upon the bough;
Thou minds me o’ the happy days,
When my fause love was true.
Thou’ll break my heart, thou bonie bird,
That sings beside thy mate;
For sae I sat, and sae I sang,
And wist na o’ my fate.
Aft hae I rov’d by bonie Doon
To see the wood-bine twine,
And ilka bird sang o’ its luve,
And sae did I o’ mine.
Wi’ lightsome heart I pu’d a rose
Frae aff its thorny tree;
And my fause luver staw my rose
But left the thorn wi’ me.
.
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1885 – Hakushū Kitahara born as Kitahara Ryūkichi, Japanese tanka poet, regarded as of the most important poets in modern Japanese literature. He began publishing his poems in 1906 in Myōjō (Bright Star), the magazine of the Shinshisha (New Poetry Association), then formed his own literary group the Pan no kai (The Society of Pan), which expanded to also include painters, musicians, and actors. He edited essays for 5 Pairs of Shoes, written by five different writers who all went on to become notable poets, in 1907. In 1909, he was a founder of the literary magazine, Subaru (The Pleiades), and published Jashumon (Heretics), his first collection of poetry, followed in 1912 by Omoide (Memories). He published several other poetry collections, and also lyrics for children’s songs, and translations of Mother Goose. In 1935, he founded Tama (Right), a tanka magazine, regarded as the spearhead of the Japanese symbolist movement. He almost lost his sight in 1937 from complications of diabetes, which worsened, and caused his death in 1942.
A Tanka
by Hakushū Kitahara
We are well into spring
And I have thought of peonies
For several days now
How many years have passed
Since my eyesight failed?
.
“A Tanka” from Botan (Peony), translated by Saaya Kurihara – FJS Classics, 2013 bilingual edition
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1952 – Alice Fulton born in Troy, New York; American poet, fiction author, essayist and critic. She has been the George Elliston Poet at University of Cincinnati, Visiting Writer at University of Virginia, and a Visiting Professor at University of California, Los Angeles, Ohio State University, and the University of North Carolina. She is currently the Ann S. Bowers Professor of English at Cornell University. Her poetry collections include: Palladium; Sensual Math; Felt, for which she was awarded the 2002 Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry by the Library of Congress; Barely Composed; and Coloratura On A Silence Found in Many Expressive Systems.
Because We Never Practiced With The Escape Chamber
by Alice Fulton
.
we had to read the instructions as we sank.
In a hand like carded lace. Not nuclear warheads
on the sea's floor nor the violet flow over the reactor
will outlive this sorrowful rhyme. Vain halo! My project
becalmed, I'll find I've built a monument
more passing than a breeze. It will cost us,
Pobrecito. We can't buy a prayer. Did you call
my name or was that the floorboard
wheezing? These memories won't get any bigger,
will they? I think something is coming that will
vastly improve our quietude. I'm growing
snow crystals from vapor in anticipation and praying
for the velvet-cushioned kneeler that I need to pray.
I made this little sound for you to wait in.
.
"Because We Never Practiced With the Escape Chamber" from Barely Composed, © 2015 by Alice Fulton – W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
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January 26
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1976 – Meghan O’Rourke born in Brooklyn New York; American nonfiction writer, journalist, poet, editor, essayist, and critic. Noted for her nonfiction book The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness and her memoir The Long Goodbye, Meghan O’Rourke has also published three collections of poetry: Halflife; Once; and Sun in Days.
Troy
by Meghan O’Rourke
.
We had a drink and got in bed.
That's when the boat in my mouth set sail,
my fingers drifting in the shallows of your buzz cut.
And in the sound of your eye
a skiff coasted—boarding it
I found all the bric-a-brac of your attic gloom,
the knives from that other island trip,
the poison suckleroot lifted from God-knows-where.
O, all your ill-begotten loot—and yes, somewhere,
the words you never actually spoke,
the woven rope tethering
me to this rotting joint. Touch me,
and the boat and the city burn like whiskey
going down the throat. Or so it goes,
our love-wheedling myth, excessively baroque.
.
“Troy” from Halflife, © 2007 by Meghan O’Rourke – W.W. Norton & Co.
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January 27
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1832 – Lewis Carroll born as Charles Lutwidge Dodgson in Daresbury, Cheshire, England; English author, poet, and mathematician. He was a scholar and teacher at Christ Church, Oxford. He was also a talented amateur photographer and an avid puzzler who created the word ladder puzzle. He became a deacon of the Church of England in 1861, but never was ordained as a priest. He is of course known for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Some of his best-known poems like Jabberwocky and The Walrus and the Carpenter originally appeared in Through the Looking-Glass and other stories, but his long poem, The Hunting of the Snark, was published on its own.
The Lobster Quadrille
by Lewis Carroll
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"Will you walk a little faster?" said a whiting to a snail,
"There's a porpoise close behind us, and he's treading on my tail.
See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance!
They are waiting on the shingle -- will you come and join the dance?
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?
.
"You can really have no notion how delightful it will be
When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to sea!"
But the snail replied "Too far, too far!" and gave a look askance --
Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the dance.
Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join the dance.
Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join the dance.
.
"What matters it how far we go?" his scaly friend replied.
"There is another shore, you know, upon the other side.
The further off from England the nearer is to France --
Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance.
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?
.
— from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (published in 1865) by Lewis Carroll
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1897 – Iris Tree born in London to actor/theatre manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree and Mrs. Beerbohm Tree (nee Helen Maud Holt), part of the Beerbohm/Tree family of notable eccentrics. Iris Tree was an English poet, an actress, and, true to her family, she was also a bohemian, an art model, a wit, and an adventurer. She posed nude for several notable artists, including Augustus John and Vanessa Bell, and the sculpture of her by Jacob Epstein showing her nude with bobbed hair caused a scandal. She published three collections of poetry: Poems; The Traveller and other Poems; and The Marsh Picnic. Though she primarily acted on the stage, she appeared briefly in the 1956 film of Moby Dick, and played herself in Fellini’s La Dolce Vita.
Thoughts of London
(1918)
by Iris Tree
Oh, have I bartered and forgotten thee,
Selling thy tarnished twilights for gold sun,
Relinquishing thy dreams that used to run
A ragged troop along thy streets with me?
Cast off the glitter of thy jewelry,
Thy lamp-light, starlight, colours crudely spun,
The eloquent ugliness, the roofs of dun,
The fogs that swathe in bands of mystery?
Mother of dreams and laughter and despair!
Thy joy my Heaven is, my Hell thy pain,
Thy labyrinthian streets wind everywhere,
Thy sins and passions baffle me again;
And all my hopes thy lamps that flick and glare,
And all my griefs thy beggars in the rain.
.
“Thoughts of London” from Poems, by Iris Tree, published in 1920 by John Lane, The Bodley Head
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G’Morning/Afternoon/Evening MOTlies!
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