tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-363636062024-03-18T05:48:38.746-04:00Poem of the Week“A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful implanted in the human soul.”
--Johann Wolfgang GoetheMahmoud Ahmadinejadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02954485142422066807noreply@blogger.comBlogger146125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36363606.post-25301065155500274812009-06-20T09:59:00.004-04:002009-06-20T10:06:49.756-04:00An Anonymous Poem from Iran<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/pKUZuv6_bus&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/pKUZuv6_bus&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><br /><br />Friday the 19th of June, 2009<br />Tomorrow, Saturday<br />Tomorrow is a day of destiny<br />Tonight the cries of Allah-o Akhbar<br />Are heard louder and louder than the nights before<div><br />Where is this place?<br />Where is this place where every door is closed?<br />Where is this place where people are simply calling God?<br />Where is this place where the sound of Allah-o Akhbar gets louder and louder?<br />I wait every night to see if the sounds will get louder and whether the number increases<br />It shakes me<br />I wonder if God is shaken<br /><br /></div><div>Where is this place where so many innocent people are entrapped?<br />Where is this place where no one comes to our aid?<br />Where is this place where only with our silence we are sending our voices to the world?<br />Where is this place where the young shed blood and then people go and pray?<br />Standing on that same blood and pray?<br /><br /></div><div>Where is this place where the citizens are called vagrants?<br />Where is this place? You want me to tell you?<br />This place is Iran<br />The homeland of you and me<br />This place is Iran<br /><br /></div>Mahmoud Ahmadinejadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02954485142422066807noreply@blogger.com485tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36363606.post-8752326132100155132009-06-12T19:21:00.003-04:002009-06-12T19:28:17.894-04:00Lesson by Ellen Bryant Voigt<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Lesson</span><br /> <br />Whenever my mother, who taught<br />small children forty years,<br />asked a question, she<br />already knew the answer.<br />"Would you like to" meant<br />you would. "Shall we" was<br />another, and "Don't you think."<br />As in "Don't you think<br />it's time you cut your hair."<div><br />So when, in the bare room,<br />in the strict bed, she said,<br />"You want to see?" her hands<br />were busy at her neckline,<br />untying the robe, not looking<br />down at it, stitches<br />bristling where the breast<br />had been, but straight at me.<br /><br />I did what I always did:<br />not weep --she never wept--<br />and made my face a kindly<br />whitewashed wall, so she<br />could write, again, whatever<br />she wanted there.<div><br /></div><div><br /><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 140px; height: 187px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFb8Y6_izvKJeqgDs2_9xE5A82VqgEsYaWKffBo0rOSIK43DI3P_c82jLpwjtamLLdf-VnUtp69t1X7zQP_F9oInOwzBBWD7hWqGMR87cfyNsMXZshgAsGV2n-ov0PsVCkDnIG/s200/147360358_e745ca5b94.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5346586744404780274" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Ellen Bryant Voigt</span> was born and raised in VIrginia. Her poetry is influenced by her background in music. She has written several books of poetry and served as the Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. She currently lives in Vermont and teaches for the Warren Wilson low-residency MFA program. </span></div></div>Mahmoud Ahmadinejadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02954485142422066807noreply@blogger.com59tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36363606.post-91732576412314154032009-06-05T17:11:00.002-04:002009-06-05T17:19:13.623-04:00Personals by C.D. Wright<span style="font-size:130%;">Personals</span><br /><br />Some nights I sleep with my dress on. My teeth<br />are small and even. I don't get headaches.<br />Since 1971 or before, I have hunted a bench<br />where I could eat my pimento cheese in peace.<br />If this were Tennessee and across that river, Arkansas,<br />I'd meet you in West Memphis tonight. We could<br />have a big time. Danger, shoulder soft.<br />Do not lie or lean on me. I'm still trying to find a job<br />for which a simple machine isn't better suited.<br />I've seen people die of money. Look at Admiral Benbow. I wish<br />like certain fishes, we came equipped with light organs.<br />Which reminds me of a little known fact:<br />if we were going the speed of light, this dome<br />would be shrinking while we were gaining weight.<br />Isn't the road crooked and steep.<br />In this humidity, I make repairs by night. I'm not one<br />among millions who saw Monroe's face<br />in the moon. I go blank looking at that face.<br />If I could afford it I'd live in hotels. I won awards<br />in spelling and the Australian crawl. Long long ago.<br />Grandmother married a man named Ivan. The men called him<br />Eve. Stranger, to tell the truth, in dog years I am up there.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIg-Asbw5vL-Qtj9Vc6UKkHaXsE5Y3VZz2oJCoDs6ZjvIhg7bpFAjuAb2G-iddNgVmSNLvnNJmU9t9XHtGnTA-eMwZu3UQjQaBDFenkQxrOHJwM19d3FcE8dDEZZxm5vZ3eIof/s1600-h/cdwright.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 103px; height: 145px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIg-Asbw5vL-Qtj9Vc6UKkHaXsE5Y3VZz2oJCoDs6ZjvIhg7bpFAjuAb2G-iddNgVmSNLvnNJmU9t9XHtGnTA-eMwZu3UQjQaBDFenkQxrOHJwM19d3FcE8dDEZZxm5vZ3eIof/s200/cdwright.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5343955979989159874" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">C. D. Wright</span> was born in 1949 in Mountain Home, Arkansas. She is the author of numerous books of poetry and currently teaches at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.</span>Mahmoud Ahmadinejadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02954485142422066807noreply@blogger.com306tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36363606.post-65633716372610748922009-05-27T19:00:00.006-04:002009-05-29T14:37:19.178-04:00Prayer by Carol Ann DuffyI love Carol Ann Duffy's "Prayer," and the poem is even more remarkable when you consider how strictly she's stayed true to the Shakespearean sonnet form--and how well she's hidden it. The last line, which I'm told is familiar to Brits, is somewhat lost in translation. It's part of a nightly radio maritime weather forecast.<br /><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;">Prayer</span><br /><br />Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer<br />utters itself. So, a woman will lift<br />her head from the sieve of her hands and stare<br />at the minims1 sung by a tree, a sudden gift.<br /><br />Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth<br />enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;<br />then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth<br />in the distant Latin chanting of a train.<br /><br />Pray for us now. Grade I piano scales<br />console the lodger looking out across<br />a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls<br />a child's name as though they named their loss.<br /><br />Darkness outside. Inside, the radio's prayer -<br />Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.<div><br /></div><div><br /><br /><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 144px; height: 144px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNdxQ7FF2bAx4B3Punxn181b2DigIu5UUSsL8e832Gx9d8sjj7gRF3YKeWZadY5JXJu0A38AQHcj9wNvDjQ6TrwfgxOF0tbmaTkNO5OGjhvRQCDM6lLojD95Cj5PQYek1qX6Pm/s200/Carol+Ann+Duffy.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5340643675852035314" border="0" /></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Carol Ann Duffy</span> was born in in 1955 in Glasgow, Scotland. She was recently named the first female (and the first Scottish) poet laureate in British history. </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span>Mahmoud Ahmadinejadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02954485142422066807noreply@blogger.com93tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36363606.post-20844976875885242142009-05-20T14:21:00.004-04:002009-05-23T00:02:53.197-04:00You Who Never Arrived by Rainer Maria Rilke<span style="font-size:130%;">You Who Never Arrived</span><br /><br />You who never arrived<br />in my arms, Beloved, who were lost<br />from the start,<br />I don't even know what songs<br />would please you. I have given up trying<br />to recognize you in the surging wave of<br />the next moment. All the immense<br />images in me -- the far-off, deeply-felt landscape,<br />cities, towers, and bridges, and un-<br />suspected turns in the path,<br />and those powerful lands that were once<br />pulsing with the life of the gods--<br />all rise within me to mean<br />you, who forever elude me.<br /><br />You, Beloved, who are all<br />the gardens I have ever gazed at,<br />longing. An open window<br />in a country house-- , and you almost<br />stepped out, pensive, to meet me. Streets that I chanced<br /> upon,--<br />you had just walked down them and vanished.<br />And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors<br />were still dizzy with your presence and, startled, gave back<br />my too-sudden image. Who knows? Perhaps the same<br />bird echoed through both of us<br />yesterday, separate, in the evening...<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">--Translated by Stephen Mitchell</span></span><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://lengua.laguia2000.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/rilke.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; float: left; width: 130px; height: 161px;" alt="" src="http://lengua.laguia2000.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/rilke.jpg" border="0" height="161" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><strong>Rainer Maria Rilke</strong> was born in Prague in 1875. He resided throughout Europe during his lifetime, including a 12-year residency is Paris, where he befriending the famed sculptor Auguste Rodin. His best known work includes his <em>Duino Elegies</em> and his <em>Sonnets to Orpheus</em>.</span>Mahmoud Ahmadinejadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02954485142422066807noreply@blogger.com73tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36363606.post-31746582716277488602009-05-15T23:13:00.005-04:002009-05-15T23:31:12.476-04:00Introduction to Poetry by Billy CollinsThis is good advice to anyone just starting to read poetry. And if you've ever been in a poetry workshop, you know what Collins is talking about in the last two stanzas.<br /><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Introduction to Poetry</span><br /><br />I ask them to take a poem<br />and hold it up to the light<br />like a color slide<br /><br />or press an ear against its hive.<br /><br />I say drop a mouse into a poem<br />and watch him probe his way out,<br /><br />or walk inside the poem's room<br />and feel the walls for a light switch.<br /><br />I want them to waterski<br />across the surface of a poem<br />waving at the author's name on the shore.<br /><br />But all they want to do<br />is tie the poem to a chair with rope<br />and torture a confession out of it.<br /><br />They begin beating it with a hose<br />to find out what it really means.<br /><br /><br /><div><br /><a href="http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2005/nov/collins/collins200.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2005/nov/collins/collins200.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><strong><a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/278">Billy Collins</a></strong> was born in New York City in 1941. He served as the Poet Laureate in 2001 and is the author of several books of poetry.</span></div>Mahmoud Ahmadinejadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02954485142422066807noreply@blogger.com44tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36363606.post-79567654389447687872009-05-08T15:14:00.002-04:002009-05-08T15:21:02.041-04:00Alone by Edgar Allan PoeOld school this week. What do you think?<br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Alone<br /></span><br />From childhood's hour I have not been<br />As others were--I have not seen<br />As others saw--I could not bring<br />My passions from a common spring--<br />From the same source I have not taken<br />My sorrow--I could not awaken<br />My heart to joy at the same tone--<br />And all I lov'd--I lov'd alone--<div>Then--in my childhood--in the dawn<br />Of a most stormy life--was drawn<br />From ev'ry depth of good and ill<br />The mystery which binds me still--<br />From the torrent, or the fountain--<br />From the red cliff of the mountain--<br />From the sun that 'round me roll'd<br />In its autumn tint of gold--<br />From the lightning in the sky<br />As it pass'd me flying by--<br />From the thunder, and the storm--<br />And the cloud that took the form<br />(When the rest of Heaven was blue)<br />Of a demon in my view--<br /><br /><br /></div><div><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4-AdrJURyCi9j236VpfkIY47G7i_CDqM5HV_pgjViPOFDsYDEmuViWK151BYybAea2NUz0zaECtmlKH7OrLpFF-Oiz1QiHw__RkW7eF6CDiiAkYzxjez_gxSMYgwlWpvxHQou/s200/130_eapoe.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333535099609474050" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Edgar Allan Poe</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 19, 1809, and was raised in Virginia. He is remembered as one of the first American writers to become a major figure in world literature.</span><br /></div>Mahmoud Ahmadinejadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02954485142422066807noreply@blogger.com32tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36363606.post-19927390709392496872009-05-02T12:20:00.004-04:002009-05-02T12:31:57.329-04:00Ave Maria by Frank O'HaraAmen.<br /><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Ave Maria<br /></span><br />Mothers of America<br />let your kids go to the movies<br />get them out of the house so they won't<br />know what you're up to<br />it's true that fresh air is good for the body<br />but what about the soul<br />that grows in darkness, embossed by<br />silvery images<br />and when you grow old as grow old you<br />must<br />they won't hate you<br />they won't criticize you they won't know<br />they'll be in some glamorous<br />country<br />they first saw on a Saturday afternoon or<br />playing hookey<br />they may even be grateful to you<br />for their first sexual experience<br />which only cost you a quarter<br />and didn't upset the peaceful<br />home<br />they will know where candy bars come<br />from<br />and gratuitous bags of popcorn<br />as gratuitous as leaving the movie before<br />it's over<br />with a pleasant stranger whose apartment<br />is in the Heaven on<br />Earth Bldg<br />near the Williamsburg Bridge<br />oh mothers you will have made<br />the little<br />tykes<br />so happy because if nobody does pick<br />them up in the movies<br />they won't know the difference<br />and if somebody does it'll be<br />sheer gravy<br />and they'll have been truly entertained<br />either way<br />instead of hanging around the yard<br />or up in their room hating you<br />prematurely since you won't have done<br />anything horribly mean<br />yet<br />except keeping them from life's darker joys<br />it's unforgivable the latter<br />so don't blame me if you won't take this<br />advice<br />and the family breaks up<br />and your children grow old and blind in<br />front of a TV set<br />seeing<br />movies you wouldn't let them see when<br />they were young<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.jenbekman.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2006/04/frank.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 142px; CURSOR: hand" height="200" alt="" src="http://www.jenbekman.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2006/04/frank.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/164"><strong>Frank O'Hara</strong> </a>became one of the most distinguished members of the New York School of poets, which also included John Ashbery, James Schuyler, and Kenneth Koch. O'Hara's association with the painters Larry Rivers, Jackson Pollock, and Jasper Johns, also leaders of the New York School, became a source of inspiration for his highly original poetry. He attempted to produce with words the effects these artists had created on canvas.</span>Mahmoud Ahmadinejadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02954485142422066807noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36363606.post-45440055965893784332009-04-24T20:22:00.003-04:002009-04-24T20:41:08.821-04:00Mirror by Sylvia PlathI love this one, but it hurts.<br /><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Mirror</span><br /><br />I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.<br />What ever you see I swallow immediately<br />Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.<br />I am not cruel, only truthful---<br />The eye of a little god, four-cornered.<br />Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.<br />It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long<br />I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.<br />Faces and darkness separate us over and over.<br />Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,<br />Searching my reaches for what she really is.<br />Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.<br />I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.<br />She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.<br />I am important to her. She comes and goes.<br />Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.<br />In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman<br />Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.<br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Plath"><strong><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 123px; CURSOR: hand" height="134" alt="" src="http://www.poetrysociety.org/journal/gifs/janeandsylvia_1.jpg" border="0" />Sylvia Plath</strong> </a>was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on October 27, 1932. She spent part of her short life in England, and married the English poet Ted Hughes. In 1963, Plath published a semi-autobiographical novel, <em>The Bell Jar</em>, under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas. Then, on February 11, 1963, during one of the worst English winters on record, Plath wrote a note to her downstairs neighbor instructing him to call the doctor, then she committed suicide. She was the first poet to win a Pulitzer Prize after death.</span>Mahmoud Ahmadinejadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02954485142422066807noreply@blogger.com341tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36363606.post-13657591876151088862009-04-18T01:32:00.002-04:002009-04-18T01:39:26.851-04:00The Long Boat by Stanley Kunitz<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><div><br /></div>The Long Boat </span><br /><br />When his boat snapped loose<br />from its mooring, under<br />the screaking of the gulls,<br />he tried at first to wave<br />to his dear ones on shore,<br />but in the rolling fog<br />they had already lost their faces.<br />Too tired even to choose<br />between jumping and calling,<br />somehow he felt absolved and free<br />of his burdens, those mottoes<br />stamped on his name-tag:<br />conscience, ambition, and all<br />that caring.<br />He was content to lie down<br />with the family ghosts<br />in the slop of his cradle,<br />buffeted by the storm,<br />endlessly drifting.<br />Peace! Peace!<br />To be rocked by the Infinite!<br />As if it didn't matter<br />which way was home;<br />as if he didn't know<br />he loved the earth so much<br />he wanted to stay forever.<br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/2"><strong><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 126px; CURSOR: hand" height="210" alt="" src="http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/0011/images/kunitz.jpg" border="0" />Stanley Kunitz</strong> </a>was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1905. He attended Harvard College, where he received a bachelor's degree in 1926 and a master's degree in 1927. He served in the Army in World War II, after a request for conscientious objector status was denied. Following the war, he began teaching, first at Bennington College in Vermont, and later at universities including Columbia, Yale, Princeton, Rutgers, and the University of Washington. He was named Poet Laureate of the U.S. in 2000. He died at the age of 100 on May 14, 2006. </span>Mahmoud Ahmadinejadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02954485142422066807noreply@blogger.com34tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36363606.post-4320718491973289942009-04-11T11:22:00.003-04:002009-04-11T11:33:38.920-04:00Eating Poetry by Mark StrandHungry?<br /><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Eating Poetry<br /></span><br />Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.<br />There is no happiness like mine.<br />I have been eating poetry.<br /><br />The librarian does not believe what she sees.<br />Her eyes are sad<br />and she walks with her hands in her dress.<br /><br /><div>The poems are gone.<br />The light is dim.<br />The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.<br /><br />Their eyeballs roll,<br />their blond legs burn like brush.<br />The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.<br /><br />She does not understand.<br />When I get on my knees and lick her hand,<br />she screams.<br /><br />I am a new man.<br />I snarl at her and bark.<br />I romp with joy in the bookish dark.<br /><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 144px; height: 174px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEpjyeW_gNi3yjdSTcJsMBedGZ5AyJF2h8qFTPQmOLGtlPShauCZh3TC1y1zEmtX1O-uEx1PbOTV5qDdaS_vCDR3z9TqOIY4MYXN-XVkdTUxwXmO67n8V_b1Rt8zlpFcN1lOEK/s200/mstrand.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5323457072853572386" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Mark Strand</span> was born on Prince Edward Island in Canada in 1934. He has served as the Poet Laureate of the United States and his 1998 collection </span></span><span style="font-style:italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Blizzard of One</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> won the Pulitzer Prize. He currently teaches at Columbia University in New York.</span></div></div>Mahmoud Ahmadinejadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02954485142422066807noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36363606.post-32321478163368724542009-04-03T15:30:00.003-04:002009-04-03T16:04:42.707-04:00Not Here by RumiThis week, some wisdom from Rumi. <br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Not Here</span><br /><br />There's courage involved if you want<br />to become truth. There is a broken-<br /><br />open place in a lover. Where are<br />those qualities of bravery and sharp<br /><br />compassion in this group? What's the<br />use of old and frozen thought? I want<br /><br />a howling hurt. This is not a treasury<br />where gold is stored; this is for copper.<br /><br />We alchemists look for talent that<br />can heat up and change. Lukewarm<br /><br />won't do. Halfhearted holding back,<br />well-enough getting by? Not here.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Translated by Coleman Barks</span><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.writespirit.net/spiritual_poets/rumi/rumi-medium.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; float: left; width: 141px;" alt="" src="http://www.writespirit.net/spiritual_poets/rumi/rumi-medium.jpg" border="0" height="143" /></a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jalal_ad-Din_Muhammad_Rumi"><strong>Rumi</strong> </a>(Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi) was a 13th century Persian muslim poet, jurist, and theologian. His name literally means "Majesty of Religion". He was born in Balkh (now part of Afghanistan) and died in present-day Turkey. His works are widely read in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and are in translation in Turkey, Azerbaijan, the U.S., and South Asia. He lived most of his life in, and produced his works under, the Seljuk Empire. Rumi's importance is considered to transcend national and ethnic borders.</span>Mahmoud Ahmadinejadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02954485142422066807noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36363606.post-32663720213206015512009-03-28T17:17:00.003-04:002009-03-28T17:23:23.284-04:00Untitled by E.E. CummingsCummings shows us that a good poem can be only four words long.<br /><br /><br />l(a<br /><br />le<br />af<br />fa<br />ll<br /><br />s)<br />one<br />l<br /><br />iness<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.nndb.com/people/960/000024888/ee-cummings.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; float: left; width: 156px;" alt="" src="http://www.nndb.com/people/960/000024888/ee-cummings.jpg" border="0" height="190" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><strong><a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/156">E.E. Cummings </a>(1894-1962)</strong> discovered an original way of describing the chaotic immediacy of sensuous experience. He played games with language and form and put forth a deliberately simplistic view of the world, giving his poems a gleeful and precocious tone. He was born in Cambridge, Mass., attended Harvard and studied Art in Paris.</span>Mahmoud Ahmadinejadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02954485142422066807noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36363606.post-41129915813988789562009-03-20T23:04:00.002-04:002009-03-20T23:08:41.857-04:00Underground by Seamus HeaneyOn the surface, "Underground" is about a memory, but I think it's also about the process of writing poetry. Notice how the speaker returns to examine the scene in the last two stanzas, bare and tense and "all attention." That reads like Heaney the poet (not Heaney the husband) to me.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Underground</span><br /><br />There we were in the vaulted tunnel running,<br />You in your going-away coat speeding ahead<br />And me, me then like a fleet god gaining<br />Upon you before you turned to a reed<br /><br />Or some new white flower japped with crimson<br />As the coat flapped wild and button after button<br />Sprang off and fell in a trail<br />Between the Underground and the Albert Hall.<br /><br />Honeymooning, moonlighting, late for the Proms,<br />Our echoes die in that corridor and now<br />I come as Hansel came on the moonlit stones<br />Retracing the path back, lifting the buttons<br /><br />To end up in a draughty lamplit station<br />After the trains have gone, the wet track<br />Bared and tensed as I am, all attention<br />For your step following and damned if I look back.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwn7jkCs94xkvv8wE7IHVkf549Np2hgkxLRHHjXPDRytadGGDx9rE_GgQDx-d5vuI9uzVidnZt51R5ZYIU864JgX-geMxPZoBDF47nWRx4hcy6R83ZUa2qZOE8U_gmWed_J6Ek/s1600-h/images.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 106px; height: 129px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwn7jkCs94xkvv8wE7IHVkf549Np2hgkxLRHHjXPDRytadGGDx9rE_GgQDx-d5vuI9uzVidnZt51R5ZYIU864JgX-geMxPZoBDF47nWRx4hcy6R83ZUa2qZOE8U_gmWed_J6Ek/s200/images.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5315472424908979042" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Seamus Heaney</span> was born into a family of farmers in County Derry, Northern Ireland in 1939. He currently lives in Dublin, but spends a part of each year teaching at Harvard University. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995. </span>Mahmoud Ahmadinejadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02954485142422066807noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36363606.post-47182141406270848622009-03-14T02:07:00.005-04:002009-03-14T02:33:47.385-04:00The Freaks at Spurgin Road Field by Richard HugoThis week, Richard Hugo's powerful villanelle about memories he's trying (unsuccessfully) to forget.<br /><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The Freaks at Spurgin Road Field</span><br /><br />The dim boy claps because the others clap.<br />The polite word, handicapped, is muttered in the stands.<br />Isn’t it wrong, the way the mind moves back.<br /><br />One whole day I sit, contrite, dirt, L.A.<br />Union Station, ’46, sweating through last night.<div>The dim boy claps because the others clap.<br /><br />Score, 5 to 3. Pitcher fading badly in the heat.<br />Isn’t it wrong to be or not be spastic?<br />Isn’t it wrong, the way the mind moves back.<br /><br />I’m laughing at a neighbor girl beaten to scream<br />by a savage father and I’m ashamed to look.<br />The dim boy claps because the others clap.<br /><br />The score is always close, the rally always short.<br />I’ve left more wreckage than a quake.<br />Isn’t it wrong, the way the mind moves back.<br /><br />The afflicted never cheer in unison.<br />Isn’t it wrong, the way the mind moves back<br />to stammering pastures where the picnic should have worked.<div>The dim boy claps because the others clap.<br /><br /></div><div><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 144px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF6yXQ_N9pBdcXrxVmjhZ-KR15pJkVZxhxKlFTDFDYprD0o-XaS-VWEPyZoq9KuY6g2chY8_uejzM_ff-UcYkj4-XzP5kTc4aqV5QhD8UuuY2UywWFIHbujYOIy_V20UzMex7c/s200/ACF633.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5312923340296571250" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Richard Hug</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">o</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> was born in a Seattle suburb in 1923. He wrote many books of poetry and a popular book on </span><span style="font-style:italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">how</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> to write poetry called </span><span style="font-style:italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The Triggering Town</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">. He died in 1982. </span><br /><br /></div></div>Mahmoud Ahmadinejadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02954485142422066807noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36363606.post-51016330868654684912009-03-06T18:41:00.003-05:002009-03-06T18:51:03.363-05:00Epilogue to The Tempest by William ShakespeareIn a remarkably contemporary moment at the end of <span style="font-style:italic;">The Tempest</span>, Shakespeare's wizard Prospero addresses the audience directly, breaking down the boundaries of the play. He informs them that the play is over, his powers are gone, and thus his escape from the play's island setting depends on their applause--that they, in effect, get to decide his fate.<br /><br />He pulls a similar trick with Puck at the end of <span style="font-style:italic;">A Midsummer Night's Dream</span><br /><br /><br />Now my charms are all o'erthrown,<br />And what strength I have's mine own,<br />Which is most faint. Now, 'tis true,<br />I must be here confined by you,<br />Or sent to Naples. Let me not,<br />Since I have my dukedom got<br />And pardoned the deceiver, dwell<br />In this bare island by your spell,<br />But release me from my bands<br />With the help of your good hands.<br />Gentle breath of yours my sails<br />Must fill, or else my project fails,<br />Which was to please. Now I want<br />Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,<br />And my ending is despair,<br />Unless I be relieved by prayer,<br />Which pierces so that it assaults<br />Mercy itself and frees all faults.<br />As you from crimes would pardoned be,<br />Let your indulgence set me free.<br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><strong>William Shakespeare 1564-1616</strong></span>Mahmoud Ahmadinejadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02954485142422066807noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36363606.post-30208045516303181722009-02-28T00:39:00.003-05:002009-02-28T00:55:35.790-05:00Moles by Mary OliverThis week, an animal poem by Mary Oliver<br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Moles</span><br /><br />Under the leaves, under<br />the first loose<br />levels of earth<br />they're there -- quick<br />as beetles, blind<br />as bats, shy<br />as hares but seenless than these --<br />traveling<br />among the pale girders<br />of appleroot,<br />rockshelf, nests<br />of insects and black<br />pastures of bulbs<br />peppery and packed full<br />of the sweetest food:<br />spring flowers.<br />Field after field<br />you can see the traceries<br />of their long<br />lonely walks, then<br />the rains blur<br />even this frail hint of them --<br />so excitable,<br />so plush,so willing to continue<br />generation after generation<br />accomplishing nothing<br />but their brief physical lives<br />as they live and die,<br />pushing and shoving<br />with their stubborn muzzles against<br />the whole earth,<br />finding it<br />delicious.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /><br /><strong><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcXd0ysWw7YVd4_bDipzo48_viH21CUchVu8dplfm1PxCXpShjU5ym_VwpywfENyJZxSW5sEDjtowVbk9Yqdpd7IssWuDPyNnYwsRWAH6wsnl7KZMi3rFuIf4Sw_tVF1ojJHWH/s200/Mary+Oliver.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5307722472195431746" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Mary Oliver</span></strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> was born on September 10, 1935 in Maple Heights, Ohio. She is the author of many book , including </span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">American Primitive</span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> (1983), for which she won the Pulitzer Prize. She currently lives in Provincetown, Massachusetts.</span><br /></div>Mahmoud Ahmadinejadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02954485142422066807noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36363606.post-88252192647439550472009-02-20T22:48:00.004-05:002009-02-20T23:02:53.442-05:00Above Pate Valley by Gary SnyderGary Snyder is one of our best nature poets. I think you can see here how Zen Buddhism has influenced him--he treats nature with a reverence. <br /><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Above Pate Valley</span><br /><br />We finished clearing the last<br />Section of trail by noon,<br />High on the ridge-side<br />Two thousand feet above the creek<br />Reached the pass, went on<br />Beyond the white pine groves,<br />Granite shoulders, to a small<br />Green meadow watered by the snow,<br />Edged with Aspen—sun<br />Straight high and blazing<br />But the air was cool.<br />Ate a cold fried trout in the<br />Trembling shadows. I spied<br />A glitter, and found a flake<br />Black volcanic glass—obsidian—<br />By a flower. Hands and knees<br />Pushing the Bear grass, thousands<br />Of arrowhead leavings over a<br />Hundred yards. Not one good<br />Head, just razor flakes<br />On a hill snowed all but summer,<br />A land of fat summer deer,<br />They came to camp. On their<br />Own trails. I followed my own<br />Trail here. Picked up the cold-drill,<br />Pick, singlejack, and sack<br />Of dynamite.<br />Ten thousand years.<br /><br /><br /><br /><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKFKONSERnTyYBwaJddp-WHT2dMRqA8MhaGGzkqI8M0z_4TeqGmv7qRiDpEVxh_J4u4a_7c_LSeV4WWSTAHEx0Jmsh5-7uHxo4Y6AQCdOJ_DLbQv7BqQ3J3hR-fxPyUDlkBQk8/s200/gary_snyder.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5305095044079611154" /><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Gary Snyder </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">was born in San Francisco in 1930. He was a member of the beat generation and is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize. He is currently a professor at the University of California at Davis.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Mahmoud Ahmadinejadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02954485142422066807noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36363606.post-54361547292578425462009-02-13T21:52:00.003-05:002009-02-13T23:59:45.700-05:00Design by Robert FrostFrost was a master of the sonnet. In "Design" he takes on the classic argument for design: that the design evident in the natural world is proof of the existence of God. <div><br /><div><br /><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Design</span><br /><br />I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,<br />On a white heal-all, holding up a moth<br />Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth--<br />Assorted characters of death and blight<br />Mixed ready to begin the morning right,<br />Like the ingredients of a witches' broth--<br />A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,<br />And dead wings carried like a paper kite.<br />What had that flower to do with being white,<br />The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?<br />What brought the kindred spider to that height,<br />Then steered the white moth thither in the night?<br />What but design of darkness to appall?--<br />If design govern in a thing so small.<br /><br /><br /><br /><div><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/192"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 111px; CURSOR: hand" height="146" alt="" src="http://www.nndb.com/people/888/000031795/ft_frost_2_85.jpg" border="0" /><strong>Robert Frost</strong> </a>was born in San Francisco in 1874. He moved to New England at the age of eleven and became interested in reading and writing poetry during his high school years in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Frost lived and taught for many years in Massachusetts and Vermont, and died in Boston on January 29, 1963.</span></div></div></div></div>Mahmoud Ahmadinejadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02954485142422066807noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36363606.post-18260370396704856162009-02-06T18:26:00.004-05:002009-02-06T18:46:12.454-05:00One Art by Elizabeth BishopBishop's famous poem begins with a playful tone, then builds to a serious and powerful ending. You might recognize the form (the villanelle) from Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night."<br /><br /><div><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">One Art</span><br /><br />The art of losing isn't hard to master;<br />so many things seem filled with the intent<br />to be lost that their loss is no disaster.<br /><br />Lose something every day. Accept the fluster<br />of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.<div>The art of losing isn't hard to master.<br /><br />Then practice losing farther, losing faster:<br />places, and names, and where it was you meant<br />to travel. None of these will bring disaster.<br /><br />I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or<br />next-to-last, of three loved houses went.<br />The art of losing isn't hard to master.<br /><br />I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,<br />some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.<br />I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.<div><br />--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture<br />I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident<br />the art of losing's not too hard to master<br />though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.<br /><br /><div><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 139px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLzLqS5VlBnfNEFXYdeIFsoW4XB5ZdUtCVMhD199yvv89xLVWpbZJ7RYwZGfejGPwm297Wx53dizOc4tV4U8oNJbQ1KK_GY8CDwMZvGvEDCm2CbVM4MpuYon7Ovg1D8Ryre6lu/s200/elizabeth-bishop-1-sized.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5299834353353672482" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Elizabeth Bishop</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> was born in 1911 in Worcester, Massachusetts, but grew up with her grandparents in Nova Scotia. She is considered to have been one of the great American poets of the 20th Century, and is best known for her remarkable book </span></span><span style="font-style:italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Geography III</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">. She died in 1979.<br /></span><br /></div></div></div></div>Mahmoud Ahmadinejadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02954485142422066807noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36363606.post-25912993386793830242009-01-29T16:55:00.006-05:002009-01-30T11:37:43.122-05:00The House Was Quiet... by Wallace StevensI think that anyone who loves reading will take to this one. The poem's mood--created by the lulling music, repetition and the lack of strong verbs--complements the subject so well.<div><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm</span><br /><br />The house was quiet and the world was calm.<br />The reader became the book; and summer night<br /><br />Was like the conscious being of the book.<br />The house was quiet and the world was calm.<br /><br />The words were spoken as if there was no book,<br />Except that the reader leaned above the page,<br /><br />Wanted to lean, wanted much to be<br />The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom<br /><br />The summer night is like a perfection of thought.<br />The house was quiet because it had to be.<br /><br />The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:<br />The access of perfection to the page.<br /><br />And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,<br />In which there is no other meaning, itself<br /><br />Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself<br />Is the reader leaning late and reading there.</div><div><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><strong><a href="http://images.encarta.msn.com/xrefmedia/sharemed/targets/images/pho/t373/T373874A.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 138px; CURSOR: hand" height="165" alt="" src="http://images.encarta.msn.com/xrefmedia/sharemed/targets/images/pho/t373/T373874A.jpg" border="0" /></a>Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)</strong>, a lawyer and business man for most of his life, is considered one of the great American poets of the 20th Century. More than any other modern poet, Stevens was concerned with the transformative power of the imagination. Composing poems on his way to and from the office and in the evenings, Stevens continued to spend his days behind a desk at the office, and led a quiet, uneventful life.</span><br /></div>Mahmoud Ahmadinejadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02954485142422066807noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36363606.post-70429639494593832922009-01-23T18:33:00.005-05:002009-01-23T19:06:10.042-05:00The Buck in the Snow by Edna St. Vincent Millay"The Buck in the Snow" is a crisp, powerful poem. Millay briefly personifies the sky and the trees, but she leans almost entirely on clear imagery and music to create the poem's impact. The repeated O sounds call up the long lovely leaps of the deer. And notice the effect when she finally interrupts the rhyme scheme.<br /><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The Buck in the Snow</span><br /><br />White sky, over the hemlocks bowed with snow,<br />Saw you not at the beginning of evening the antlered buck and his doe<br />Standing in the apple-orchard? I saw them. I saw them suddenly go,<br />Tails up, with long leaps lovely and slow,<br />Over the stone-wall into the wood of hemlocks bowed with snow.<br /><br />Now he lies here, his wild blood scalding the snow.<br /><br />How strange a thing is death, bringing to his knees, bringing to his antlers<br />The buck in the snow.<br />How strange a thing--a mile away by now, it may be,<br />Under the heavy hemlocks that as the moments pass<br />Shift their loads a little, letting fall a feather of snow--<br />Life, looking out attentive from the eyes of the doe.<br /><br /><br /><br />You might also enjoy <a href="http://poem-of-the-week.blogspot.com/2008/01/first-fig-by-edna-st-vincent-millay.html">"First Fig"</a><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://bluehydrangeas.files.wordpress.com/2006/10/millay.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 133px; CURSOR: hand" height="165" alt="" src="http://bluehydrangeas.files.wordpress.com/2006/10/millay.jpg" border="0" /></a> <span style="font-size:85%;"><strong>Edna St. Vincent Millay</strong> was born in Rockland, ME in 1892. Her fourth book of poetry, <em>The Harp Weaver</em>, earned her the Pulitzer Prize. </span>Mahmoud Ahmadinejadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02954485142422066807noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36363606.post-43374601067554751592009-01-16T12:49:00.004-05:002009-01-16T19:39:08.599-05:00The Little Mute Boy by Federico Garcia LorcaLorca may have been the most important Spanish poet of the 20th Century. His surrealist work like "The Little Mute Boy"--which sought to tap into the unconscious--had a profound impact on American poetry.<br /><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The Little Mute Boy<br /></span><br />The little boy was looking for his voice.<br />(The king of the crickets had it.)<br />In a drop of water<br />the little boy was looking for his voice.<br />I do not want it for speaking with;<br />I will make a ring of it<br />so that he may wear my silence<br />on his little finger<br /><br />In a drop of water<br />the little boy was looking for his voice.<br /><br />(The captive voice, far away,<br />put on a cricket's clothes.)<br /><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Translated by William S. Merwin</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 220px; height: 300px;" src="http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41986000/jpg/_41986674_111lorca.jpg" border="0" alt="" />Federico Garcia Lorca</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> was born in Granada, Spain in 1899. He later moved to Madrid where he became part of a group of surrealists that included the painter Salvador Dali. He was killed by Franco's soldiers in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War.</span></div>Mahmoud Ahmadinejadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02954485142422066807noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36363606.post-8950520815178375482009-01-09T18:45:00.000-05:002009-01-09T18:46:38.738-05:00How Many Nights by Galway KinnellHappy New Year from Poem of the Week! I set the blog on auto update while I was on vacation and it failed me (sigh). But we'll be back on schedule now. To start the year, here's "How Many Nights" by Galway Kinnell, who I think writes about nature as well as any living poet.<div><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">How Many Nights</span><br /></span><br />How many nights<br />hive I lain in terror,<br />O Creator Spirit, Maker of night and day,<br /><br />only to walk out<br />the next morning over the frozen world<br />hearing under the creaking of snow<br />faint, peaceful breaths . . .<br />snake,<br /><br />bear, earthworm, ant . . .<br />and above me a wild crow crying 'yaw yaw yaw'<br />from a branch nothing cried from ever in my life.<br /><br /><br /><br /><div>If you want to read another, take a look at<a href="http://poem-of-the-week.blogspot.com/2007/01/saint-francis-and-sow-by-galway-kinnell.html"> Saint Francis and the Sow</a>.<br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 140px; height: 170px;" src="http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/pictures/middle/galway_kinnell.jpg" border="0" alt="" />Galway Kinnell </span>was born in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1927. He has won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. He was a professor of Creative Writing at NYU, but is now retired and at his home in Vermont.</span><br /></div></div>Mahmoud Ahmadinejadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02954485142422066807noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36363606.post-68624540203643174402008-12-20T09:24:00.004-05:002008-12-20T09:54:32.281-05:00Ars Poetica #100: I Believe by Elizabeth AlexanderThis week, a poem by Elizabeth Alexander, who will read at Obama's inauguration. You can read more of her poems <a href="http://www.elizabethalexander.net/home.html">here</a>. Do you like Obama's choice?<br /><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Ars Poetica #100: I Believe</span><br /><br />Poetry, I tell my students,<br /> is idiosyncratic. Poetry<br /><br />is where we are ourselves,<br /> (though Sterling Brown said<br /><br />“Every ‘I’ is a dramatic ‘I’”) <br />digging in the clam flats<br /><br />for the shell that snaps, <br />emptying the proverbial pocketbook.<br /><br />Poetry is what you find<br /> in the dirt in the corner,<br /><br />overhear on the bus, God<br /> in the details, the only way<br /><br />to get from here to there. <br />Poetry (and now my voice is rising)<br /><br />is not all love, love, love,<br />and I’m sorry the dog died.<br /><br />Poetry (here I hear myself loudest)<br />is the human voice,<br /><br />and are we not of interest to each other?<div><br /><div><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 120px; height: 167px;" src="http://www.theroot.com/media/2/Elizabeth%20Alexander-thumb8.jpg" border="0" alt="" />Elizabeth Alexander</span> was born in Harlem, New York in 1962, and is a professor at Yale. She is the author of four books of poetry. Her latest collection <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">American Sublim</span>e was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize.</span></div></div>Mahmoud Ahmadinejadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02954485142422066807noreply@blogger.com14