It approaches from the sea, too small
For thunder and lightning
But ominous as a closed fist
And what it will bring
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Nearing us, growing larger,
Is completely unknown.
Beware the leaves blowing, beware
The spot on the sun.
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All is turned toward it. It rides
The brow of the mind.
Soon, it will shadow one cliff
And a small coastal shrine.
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Beware the leaves blowing, beware
The spot on the sun.
Do your work well. Behold
The work yet to be done.
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Found completely by accident this poem and poet, new to me.
IMO, instant classic: breathtaking perfection.
Apposite, too. Oh, yes.
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Dick Allen grew up in Round Lake, N.Y., near the Adirondack Mountains. B.A,. Syracuse University; M.A., Brown University.
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Allen was one of the founders of Expansive poetry, a movement that started in the 1980s. He wrote: “Expansive Poetry is a narrative, dramatic and sometimes lyric poetry of the late 20th Century that conveys significant non-Confessional observations, thoughts and feelings about the world outside the Self and about the Self’s various relationships with this outer world. In carrying such content, it generally uses traditional rhyme and meter—sometimes loosened or roughened—incorporating natural speech patterns.”
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Influences on Allen included Ralph Waldo Emerson, A.E. Housman, Ben Jonson, Robert Frost, Archibald MacLeish. His work appeared in general-interest magazines such as The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, and The New Republic as well as Poetry and others. He published eight poetry collections. His work also was included in several Best American Poetry and Best American Spiritual Writing anthologies.
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He served as Director of Creative Writing and Charles A. Dana Endowed Chair Professor at the University of Bridgeport until retirement in 2001.
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Interestingly, the poet also coedited several science fiction anthologies.
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Awards and honors included the Robert Frost Prize for Poetry, the Hart Crane Poetry Prize, the Union League Civic & Arts Foundation Poetry Prize, the May Caroline Davis Poetry Prize from the Poetry Society of America, the San Jose Bicentennial Poetry Prize, and a Pushcart Prize. He was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Ingram Merrill Foundation. He was poet laureate of Connecticut from 2010 through 2015.
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In response to the tragedy at Sandy Hook in December 2012, he
wrote a poem called "Solace", which was set to music by composer William Bolcolm. Audio files at link.
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Allen lived in Connecticut with his wife, poet and fiction writer L.N. Allen, until his death in December. Obituary:
www.courant.com/...
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About that phrase:
“a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand”: a common signifier for a small sign of impending trouble, it is actually an
inexact quotation from the Bible, I Kings, King James (Authorized) version, verse 18:44. The translation reads, "There ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man's hand." (A frustrated search for that exact quotation, for other reasons, led me to the poem.)
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More Literary Diaries on DKos:
Classic Poetry Group
FreeWriters
Readers and Book Lovers (with full schedule of literary diaries)