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New Year's Resolution:
To tolerate fools more gladly,
provided this does not encourage
them to take up more of my time.
– James Agate
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13 poets born as the
Old Year closes, and
the New Year opens
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December 31
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1905 – Frank Marshall Davis born in Arkansas City, Kansas; Black American journalist, poet, political and labor movement activist, and columnist. When he was five years old, he was nearly killed by older white children who tried to lynch him. He studied industrial journalism at Kansas State Agricultural College, where an English instructor encouraged him to write poetry, but he left before getting a degree. In 1927, he began working for Black newspapers in Chicago, and submitted articles and poetry to African American magazines. He moved to Atlanta in 1931 to become an editor at a twice-weekly newspaper, and became managing editor the next year. The paper was renamed the Atlanta Daily World in 1932, the first successful Black daily newspaper in the U.S. His first poetry collection, Black Man’s Verse, published in 1935, attracted critical acclaim. From the title poem from his second collection I Am the American Negro: "When I wrote / I dipped my pen / In the crazy heart / Of mad America." During the Great Depression, he was part of the Federal Writers’ Project, and involved in community organizing in Chicago. In 1945, he taught one of the first jazz history classes in the U.S. at Chicago’s Abraham Lincoln School. By the 1950s, he had virtually disappeared from the literary scene, moving to Hawaii, where his children grew up in a culturally diverse society. He wrote a column for the Honolulu Record. Meanwhile, the FBI and the House Un-American Activities Committee were investigating his “politically subversive material.” So while his poetry was being translated and finding readers in other countries, his books were being taken out of American libraries and schools. In the late 1960s, his poetry began to be published. By 1973, Davis was on a college lecture tour. Frank Marshall Davis died of a heart attack at age 81 in July 1987. His published work includes Through Sepia Eyes; 47th Street; Jazz Interludes; Awakening; and three books published posthumously – Livin' the Blues: Memories of a Black Journalist and Poet; Black Moods: Collected Poems; and Writings of Frank Marshall Davis: A Voice of the Black Press.
Sam Jackson
by Frank Marshall Davis
.
The moon was a thick slab of yellow cheese between thin slices of toasted clouds
.
The night air spilled steak and coffee smells from a sack of odors hauled from the Elite Cafe
.
Beneath penniless Sam Jackson’s window two dogs argued like nations over a morsel found in a garbage can
.
Strong Hunger slashed Sam’s belly with eagle talons until he staggered wounded and sore to the street
.
Daily papers itemed: “An unidentified Negro was shot and instantly killed late last night by Officer Patrick Riley while trying to break into the rear of the Dew Drop Inn … ”
.
“Sam Jackson” from I Am the American Negro, © 1937 by Frank Marshall Davis –
Black Cat Press
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1969 – Jane Springer born in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee; American poet and academic. In 2007, her debut poetry collection, Dear Blackbird, won the Agha Shahid Ali Prize. Her second book, Murder Ballad, won the 2011 Beatrice Hawley Award. She also won the 2010 Whiting Award for Poetry. She has published a third collection, Moth, and Genocide: A Groundwork Guide, a nonfiction book designed for use in teaching young students. Springer is a professor of literature and creative writing at Hamilton College near Utica, New York.
Salt Hill
by Jane Springer
.
I was born in a Tennessee sanatorium hours after my mother’s father died
& I know
.
how the womb becomes a salt-sea grave.
.
I was born in the last seconds of small crops & small change rained down on
the collection plate’s felt palate & I know
.
the soul’s barn debt to past generations, too.
.
Outside, ditchfuls of chicory flashed in the after-rain sun as melancholia’s
purple scent rose & its steepled fog distilled in Tennessee hills.
.
& I know I’m not supposed to be here on account of all those crazy aunts
& I know great grandma was five
.
when her Cherokee mother died & her daddy dumped her on the red clay
curb of an Arkansas reservation then drove away in a wagon—
.
how she just strode the fields of milkweed back to Tennessee & married
her cousin.
.
When I was five I drowned a fly in a piepan of water then spooned it out &
heaped a hill of salt on its still body until I could hear a buzz again (as if
within a belly)
.
& I know the rush of the resurrected.
.
I was born in the last decade of small town girls wearing white gloves to
funerals.
.
As an infant my boy quit suckling long enough to wave to my mother’s ghost—
who used to drift in the doorway of the hours.
.
& at three he told me at my age he had red hair & broke his neck falling off
a runaway horse—I know
.
the rocking chair’s set too close to the edge of the porch.
“Salt Hill” from Murder Ballad, © 2012 by Jane Springer – Alice James Books
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January 1
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1885 – Helen Parry Eden born in London, the daughter of judge and dramatist Edward Abbott Parry; English poet, short story writer, and critic. She is credited with popularizing the English phrase “bread and circuses.” She was educated at Roedean, a boarding school for girls age 11-18, then Manchester University and King's College Art School. Her poetry appeared in Punch, Pall Mall Magazine, and the Catholic Messenger. Among the poetry collections she published are: Bread and Circuses; A String of Sapphires; and Whistles of Silver. She died at age 75 in December 1960.
The Phœnix Liberty
by Helen Parry Eden
.
ONE dark December day, the text-books teach,
The English Commons set unbending names,
By the wan light of wavering candle-flames,.
To their immortal Protest for Free Speech:
Stern signatories, who spared not to impeach
Mompesson and Mitchell of corrupted aims,
"And argue and debate," said peevish James,
"Publicly, matters far beyond their reach."
"O fiery popular spirits," re-create
Some sparkle of your ashes. Let us see
The Phœnix Liberty, that chirps by stealth
Through chinks and crannies of our shuttered state,
Bright as the sun and unabashed as he,
Cry through the casements of the commonwealth.
.
“The Phœnix Liberty” from Coal and Candlelight by Helen Parry Eden, originally published in 1918 – from Project Gutenberg EBook – 2014
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1911 – Audrey Wurdemann born in Seattle, American poet; at age 24, she became the youngest winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1935, for her collection, Bright Ambush. She was the great-granddaughter of Percy Bysshe Shelly and published five books of poems, her first, The House of Silk when she was only 16. Her husband, Joseph Auslander, was named as the first Consultant in Poetry (1937-1941 – title changed to Poet Laureate in 1986)) to the Library of Congress.
Persephone
by Audrey Wurdemann
.
When she first came there, Pluto wept,
Streaking cinders down his face,
While she competently slept
In her alloted place.
She catalogued the little hells,
Cupboarded the fires,
And placed in tabulated wells
Old lost desires.
She made His Lordship stoop to gather
Ashes from the floor;
She regulated stormy weather,
And polished Hades’ door.
The Devil was unhappy in
Such cleanliness and space.
She said it was a mortal sin,
The way he’d kept the place!
Now, after several million years,
(For time can reconcile),
He tip-toes with quite human fears
About their domicile.
.
“Persephone” from Bright Ambush, © 1934 by Audrey Wurdemann – Reynal and Hitchcock
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1959 – Elise Paschen born in Chicago IL; American poet, anthologist, educator, member of the Osage nation, and daughter of renowned prima ballerina Maria Tallchief. She is the co-founder and co-editor of Poetry in Motion, a program which places poetry posters in subways and buses across the country. Dr. Paschen teaches in the MFA Writing Program at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her poetry collections are Houses: Coasts (1985), Infidelities (1996), Bestiary (2009), and The Nightlife (2017). She was the Executive Director of the Poetry Society of America (1988-2001), and has edited numerous anthologies, including Reinventing the Enemy’s Language: Contemporary Native Women’s Writings of North America (1997).
Wi’-gi-e
Anna Kyle Brown. Osage.
1896-1921. Fairfax, Oklahoma
.
by Elise Paschen
.
Because she died where the ravine falls into water.
Because they dragged her down to the creek.
In death, she wore her blue broadcloth skirt.
Though frost blanketed the grass she cooled her feet in the spring.
Because I turned the log with my foot.
Her slippers floated downstream into the dam.
Because, after the thaw, the hunters discovered her body.
.
Because she lived without our mother.
Because she had inherited head rights for oil beneath the land.
She was carrying his offspring.
The sheriff disguised her death as whiskey poisoning.
Because, when he carved her body up, he saw the bullet hole in her skull.
Because, when she was murdered, the leg clutchers bloomed.
But then froze under the weight of frost.
During Xtha-cka Zhi-ga Tze-the, the Killer of the Flowers Moon.
I will wade across the river of the blackfish, the otter, the beaver.
I will climb the bank where the willow never dies.
.
“Wi’-gi-e” from Bestiary, © 2009 by Elise Paschen – Red Hen Press
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January 2
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1827 – Louise Vickroy Boyd born in Urbana, Ohio; American poet, children’s stories author, essayist, and supporter of the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, and the temperance movement. Beginning in the 1850s, she contributed her work to many magazines and newspapers, including Scribner’s, The Saturday Evening Post, and the New York Tribune. She died at age 82 in 1909.
A City
by Louise Vickroy Boyd
.
THEN
.
A CITY enthroned by the waters
Rejoicing in conscious power
To see in the tide reflected
Her palace and temple and tower.
The heavens behold with smiling
How regal her splendor is,
And winds of her wealth are telling
In measureless harmonies.
.
NOW
.
The city is lost in a legend,
But the legend tells us she
Was invaded and overpowered
By a wild, insurgent sea,
While winds are aweary wailing
A requiem evermore,
Where her glory’s ghost unquiet
Is haunting a lonely shore.
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January 3
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1698 – Pietro Metastasio born in Rome as Pietro Domenico Trapassi; Italian poet, songwriter, and opera librettist. As a child, he was known for reciting impromptu verse, which attracted the attention of Giovanni Vincenzo Gravina, the first director of the Accademia dell'Arcadia (Acadian Academy), a group which advocated the return Italian poetry to the forms of the Classical Age. Gravina adopted Pietro as his son (his birth father was happy to see his son get a good education in Latin, law, and classical literature, and advance to a higher social level). Pietro was vulnerable to respiratory ailments, which would become more serious in later life. At 16, he took minor orders in the Church, a necessity for advancement at that time. In 1718, Gravina died, leaving 20-year-old Metastasio his fortune. In 1730, he moved to Vienna, where he wrote most of his finest dramas for the imperial theatre, and librettos for operas. The cold winters in Vienna were bad for Metastasio’s heath, and he began to write less and less – by 1755, he wasn’t writing, had few social engagements, and was fading into premature old age. He died at age 84 in April 1782.
Without and Within
by Pietro Metastasio
.
If every man’s internal care
Were written on his brow,
How many would our pity share
Who raise our envy now?
The fatal secret, when revealed,
Of every aching breast,
Would prove that only while concealed
Their lot appeared the best.
.
– translator not credited
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1933 – Anne Stevenson born in Cambridge, England to American parents, prolific American-English poet and author of studies of Sylvia Plath and Elizabeth Bishop; Stevenson played cello and piano, destined to be a professional musician. But while studying music and languages at the University of Michigan, at the age of 19 she began to lose her hearing, so she shifted to writing instead. Since 1962, she has lived and worked almost entirely in the U.K., including Cambridge, Scotland, Oxford, and, most recently, North Wales and Durham. While she considers herself an American, she says, “I belong to an America which no longer really exists.” Stevenson was the inaugural winner in 2002 of the Northern Rock Foundation’s Writer’s Award, and the 2007 Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award, awards that are among the richest literary prizes in the world. She died from heart failure at age 87 in September 2020. Among her many poetry collections are: Living in America; Travelling Behind Glass; Four and a Half Dancing Men; The Other House; and Collected Poems.
Temporarily in Oxford
by Anne Stevenson
.
Where they will bury me
I don't know.
Many places might not be
sorry to store me.
.
The Midwest has right of origin.
Already it has welcomed my mother
to its flat sheets.
.
The English fens that bore me
have been close curiously often.
It seems I can't get away from
dampness and learning.
.
If I stay where I am
I could sleep in this educated earth.
.
But if they are kind, they'll burn me
and send me to Vermont.
.
I'd be an education for the trees
and would relish, really,
flaring into maple each October—
my scarlet letter to you.
.
Your stormy north is possible.
You will be there, engrossed in its peat.
.
It would be handy not
to have to cross the whole Atlantic
each time I wanted to
lift up the turf and slip in beside you.
.
"Temporarily in Oxford" from Poems 1955-2005, © 2005 by Anne Stevenson –Bloodaxe Books Ltd.
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January 4
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1931 – Nora Iuga born, Romanian poet, writer, novelist, journalist, translator, and editor; she was censored between 1971 and 1978 by the communist government in Romania after the publication of her second collection of poems, Captivitatea cercului (Trapped in a Circle). Her books were also withdrawn from public libraries and bookstores. However, since then she has published 13 poetry collections. The first English translation of her work, a collection of poems called The Hunchbacks’ Bus, was published in 2016.
oh, how I cheat myself
by Nora Iuga
.
how I shuffle my lovers
the living and the dead
in this tavern
named poetry
I always relished being a coquette
black stockings bright red nails
you know it’s very hard today to carry
this shopping bag
.
“oh, how I cheat myself” from Dangerous Caprices, © 2023 by Nora Iuga, translated by Adam Sorkin and Diana Manole – Naked Eye Publishing
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January 5
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1926 – W.D. Snodgrass born as William De Witt Snodgrass in Pennsylvania; American poet, critic, educator, and translator; he served as a typist in the U.S. Navy during WWII, then earned his degrees at the University of Iowa, where he studied with Robert Lowell. Snodgrass won the 1960 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Heart’s Needle. He published over 30 books. His 1977 collection The Fuehrer Bunker, imagined dramatic monologues of the people who shared Hitler’s bunker in the last days, was controversial.
Song [Sweet Beast, I have gone Prowling]
by W.D. Snodgrass
.
Sweet beast, I have gone prowling,
a proud rejected man
who lived along the edges
catch as catch can;
in darkness and in hedges
I sang my sour tone
and all my love was howling
conspicuously alone.
.
I curled and slept all day
or nursed my bloodless wounds
until the squares were silent
where I could make my tunes
singular and violent.
Then, sure as hearers came
I crept and flinched away.
And, girl, you've done the same.
.
A stray from my own type,
led along by blindness,
my love was near to spoiled
and curdled all my kindness.
I find no kin, no child;
only the weasel's ilk.
Sweet beast, cat of my own stripe,
come and take my milk.
"Song [Sweet Beast, I have gone Prowling]" from Not for Specialists: New and Selected Poems, © 2006 by W.D. Snodgrass – BOA Editions
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January 6
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1878 – Carl Sandburg born in Galesburg, Illinois; one of the best-known and best-loved American poets, he was a prolific author of books of poetry and of an outstanding multi-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln, which won the 1940 Pulitzer Prize for History. Sandburg won two other Pulitzer Prizes, both for Poetry, in 1919 for Cornhuskers, and in 1951 for Collected Poems. Sandburg supported the Civil Rights Movement and was the first white man to be honored by the NAACP with their Silver Plaque Award as a "major prophet of civil rights in our time." He died at age 89 in July 1967.
A Homely Winter Idyll
by Carl Sandburg
.
Great, long, lean clouds in sullen host
Along the skyline passed today;
While overhead I’ve only seen
A leaden sky the whole day long.
.
My heart would gloomily have mused
Had I not seen those queer, old crows
Stop short in their mad frolicking
And pose for me in long, black rows.
.
“A Homely Winter Idyll” from The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg – Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, January 2003 edition
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1931 – P. J. Kavanaugh born in Worthing, Sussex, England; English poet, novelist, lecturer, actor, BBC broadcaster, and columnist. He was called up for National Service, and was wounded in the Korean War. He attended Merton College, Oxford (1951-1954), where he began writing poetry. He married Sarah Phillips in 1954, but she died of poliomyelitis two years later in Java, where he had been sent by the British Council to teach. His 1966 memoir about his early life and their relationship, The Perfect Stranger, won the Richard Hillary Memorial Prize. Among his many volumes of poetry are: One and One; On the Way to the Depot; About Time; An Enchantment; and Something About. He did some acting in British films and series television, including the episode of The Avengers in which Diana Rigg made her last appearance as Mrs. Peel. Kavanaugh also wrote columns for The Spectator and The Times Literary Supplement. He died at age 84 in August 2015.
Peace
by P.J. Kavanaugh
.
And sometimes I am sorry when the grass
Is growing over the stones in quiet hollows
And the cocksfoot leans across the rutted cart-pass
That I am not the voice of country fellows
Who now are standing by some headland talking
Of turnips and potatoes or young corn
Of turf banks stripped for victory.
Here Peace is still hawking
His coloured combs and scarves and beads of horn.
.
Upon a headland by a whinny hedge
A hare sits looking down a leaf-lapped furrow
There's an old plough upside-down on a weedy ridge
And someone is shouldering home a saddle-harrow.
Out of that childhood country what fools climb
To fight with tyrants Love and Life and Time?
.
“Peace” from Selected Poems, by P.J. Kavanaugh – Penguin Modern Classics, 2018 edition
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1949 – C.D. Wright born as Caroline Wright in Mountain Home, Arkansas; prolific American poet, and editor of Lost Roads Publishers, which specialized in publishing new poets and translations. In 2010, her book One With Others won both the National Book Award for Poetry and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, for. Wright died at age 67 of thrombosis in January 2016. Among her many poetry collections are: Room Rented By A Single Woman; Just Whistle: A Valentine; Steal Away; The Other Hand; and ShallCross, published posthumously.
Hotels
by C.D. Wright
.
In the semidark we take everything off,
love standing, inaudible; then we crawl into bed.
You sleep with your head balled up in its dreams,
I get up and sit in the chair with a warm beer,
the lamp off. Looking down on a forested town
in a snowfall I feel like a novel — dense
and vivid, uncertain of the end — watching
the bundled outlines of another woman another man
hurrying toward the theater’s blue tubes of light.
.
“Hotels” from Further Adventures with You, © 1986 by C.D. Wright –
Carnegie-Mellon University Press
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Happy New Year and
G’Morning/Afternoon/Evening MOTlies!
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