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536956f They were wrong about the sun. It does not go down into the underworld at night. The sun leaves merely and the underworld emerges. It can happen at any moment. It can happen in the morning, you in the kitchen going through your mild routines. Plate, cup, knife. All at once there's no blue, no green, no warning. poetry underworld Margaret Atwood
9f257e1 This was what the poets couldn't put in their poetry, she thought dumbly, the rush of desire so fierce and pure it made one shake, all on the force of a word. poetry Lauren Willig
4932037 You say you are a poet of law; I saw you are a contradiction in terms. I only wonder there were not comets and earthquakes on the night you appeared in this garden. poetry G.K. Chesterton
ecbdab8 Every poet begins (however 'unconsciously') by rebelling more strongly against the fear of death than all other men and women do. poetry Harold Bloom
ca1bd59 "Oh, Youth may listen patiently, While sad Experience tells her tale, But Doubt sits smiling in his eye, For ardent Hope will still prevail! He hears how feeble Pleasure dies, By guilt destroyed, and pain and woe; He turns to Hope--and she replies, "Believe it not-it is not so!" hope life poetry Anne Brontë
b27c51e You are a poem--and that is to be the best part of a poet--what makes up the poet's consciousness in his best moods. poetry George Eliot
c5fa88d We do not admire their president. We know why the White House is white. We do not find their children irresistible; We do not agree they should inherit the earth. native-americans poems poetry race-relations united-states united-states-of-america us usa whites Alice Walker
a73201d Enmerson's interest is in the workshop phase, the birthing stage of art, not the museum moment, the embalming phase. Poetry mimics Creation and is therefore sacred. More precisely, just as God may indeed be a verb (as Mary Daly insists), poetry is the act of . The process of poetry also mimics the process of nature. 'This expression or naming is not art, but a second nature, grown out of the first, as a leaf out of a tree. What we call nature is a certain self-regulated motion or change.' Another aspect of nature is genius, which, as Emerson observes, 'is the activity which repairs the decays of things. creative-process decay definition-of-genius emerson genius mary-daly nature poetry process ralph-waldo-emerson transcendentalism workshop writing writing-tips Robert D. Richardson
ed0e752 "Havin loved enough and lost enough, I'm no longer searching, just opening, no longer trying to make sense of pain but trying to be a soft and sturdy home in which real things can land. These are the irritations that rub into a pearl. So we can talk for a while but then we must listen, the way rocks listen to the sea. And we can churn at all that goes wrong but then we must lay all distractions down and water every living seed. And yes, on nights like tonight I too feel along. But seldom do I face it squarely enough to see that it's a door into the endless berath that has no breather, optimism pain poetry Mark Nepo
9cdb399 "Conflicting stories continue to circulate concerning the death of the President. A second White House announcement has now called attention to the President's schedule for the day, pointing out that no mention is made there of dying. Also released was the President's schedule for tomorrow, wherein there also appears to be no plan on the part of the President or his advisers for him to die. "I think it would be best," said the White House Bilge Secretary, "in the light of these schcedules, to wait for a statement, one way or another, from the President himself." poetry Philip Roth
388ac77 Et ce monde etrange continue de tourner. français hope keep-going mélancolie poetry traduction vers Paul Auster
bb39ab4 Colorless green ideas sleep furiously three old owls on a chest of drawers were screwing the daughter of the doctor. But then the mother called them, colorless green ideas slepp furiously. irony linguistics pastiche poetry semantics sestina Umberto Eco
9ed98d1 One day the English language is going to perish. The easy spokenness of it will perish and go black and crumbly -- maybe -- and it will become a language like Latin that learned people learn. And scholars will write studies of and and and and and , and everyone will see that the sitcom is the great American art form. American poetry will perish with the language; the sitcoms, on the other hand, are new to human evolution and therefore will be less perishable. language poetry sitcom television Nicholson Baker
261ce2f The city had changed beyond recognition. Wrecking balls and bulldozers had leveled the old buildings to rubble. The dust of construction hung permanently over the streets. Gated mansions reached up to the northern foothills, while slums fanned out from the city's southern limits. I feared an aged that had lost its heart, and I was terrified at the thought of so many useless hands. Our traditions were our pacifiers and we put ourselves to sleep with the lullaby of a once-great civilation and culture. Ours was the land of poetry flowers, and nightingales--and poets searching for rhymes in history's junkyards. The lottery was our faith and greed our fortune. Our intellectuals were sniffing cocaine and delivering lectures in the back rooms of dark cafes. We bought plastic roses and decorated our lawns and courtyards with plaster swans. We saw the future in neon lights. We had pizza shops, supermarkets, and bowling alleys. We had trafric jams, skyscrapers, and air thick with noise and pollution. We had illiterate villagers who came to the capital with scraps of paper in their hands, begging for someone to show them the way to this medical clinic or that government officee. the streets of Tehran were full of Mustangs and Chevys bought at three times the price they sold for back in America, and still our oil wasn't our own. Still our country wasn't our own. ginsberg howl poetry Jasmin Darznik
e8d7740 Po kazdej wojnie ktos musi posprzatac. poetry polish sprzątać war wojna Wisława Szymborska
208a1fd "I used to write poetry when I was younger," Jess said. She had kept a notebook by her bed, in case some line or image came to her in her dreams, but she had always been a sound sleeper, and no Xanadus or nightingales woke her. She read Coleridge or Keats and felt that they had covered the great subjects so well that she had nothing to add about beauty, or immortality of the soul. "Now I just read." She spoke cheerfully, without a hint of wistfulness. She was indignant sometimes, but never wistful. Opinionated, but still hopeful in her opinions. Oh, Jess, George thought, no one has hurt you yet." jess-and-george jess-bach poetry protective Allegra Goodman
d650cfe "Because you rubbed my shoulder last night a poem poetry Alice Walker
d19fcc1 The heart, I think, which is the home of all things rhythmic, is where learned poems go to live. memorization poems poetry Bill Richardson
b7b37ff Versifying left her cold. Poems were too close to prayer, rousing regrettable passions. Waiting for God to rescue you when it was up to you. Poetry and prayer put ideas in people's heads that got them killed, distracting them from the ruthless mechanism of the world. poems poetry prayer self-reliance verse world Colson Whitehead
7b427fe from under the ground, from under the waters, they clutch at us, they clutch at us, we won't let go. dreaming dreams grief grieving loss nightmare nightmares poetic poetry Margaret Atwood
5e32d11 I had to send away for the beacuse they are not available in any store. They look the same as any sunglasses with a light tint and silvery frames, but instead of filtering out the harmful rays of the sun. they filter out the harmful sight of you -- poetry Billy Collins
0fbcba7 The fly lands on the swatter. The movie runs backwards and catches fire in the projector. This species apes us well by talking only about itself poetry words Billy Collins
05177f1 You are turning me like someone turning a globe in her hand, and yes, I have another side like a China no one, not even me, has ever seen. So describe to me what's there, say what you are looking at and I will close my eyes so I can see it too, the oxcarts and all the lively flags. I love the sound of your voice like a little saxophone telling me what I could never know unless I dug a hole all the way down through the core of myself. poetry Billy Collins
bf485c4 Eastern Standard Time Poetry speaks to all people, it is said, but here I would like to address only those in my own time zone, this proper slice of longitude that runs from pole to snowy pole down the globe through Montreal to Bogota. Oh, fellow inhabitants of this singular band, sitting up in your many beds this morning-- the sun falling through the windows and casting a shadow on the sundial-- consider those in other zones who cannot hear these words. They are not slipping into a bathrobe as we are, or following the smell of coffee in a timely fashion. Rather, they are at work already, leaning on copy machines, hammering nails into a house-frame. They are not swallowing a vitamin like us; rather they are smoking a cigarette under a half moon, even jumping around on a dance floor, or just now sliding under the covers, pulling down the little chains on their bed lamps. But we are not like these others, for at this very moment on the face of the earth, we are standing under a hot shower, or we are eating our breakfast, considered by people of all zones to be the most important meal of the day. Later, when the time is right, we might sit down with the boss, wash the car, or linger at a candle-lit table, but now is the hour for pouring the juice and flipping the eggs with one eye on the toaster. So let us slice a banana and uncap the jam, lift our brimming spoons of milk, and leave it to the others to lower a flag or spin absurdly in a barber's chair-- those antipodal oddballs, always early or late. Let us praise Sir Stanford Fleming the Canadian genius who first scored with these lines the length of the spinning earth. Let us move together through the rest of this day passing in unison from light to shadow, coasting over the crest of noon into the valley of the evening and then, holding hands, slip into the deeper valley of night. morning night poetry Billy Collins
b36fe20 "I feel like the secretary to the morning whose only/ responsibility is to take down its bright, airy dictation/ mundane poetry small-joys writing Billy Collins
1a43e1c -- !Ella llora, insensata, porque ella ha vivido! !Y porque vive! Pero, lo que ella deplora Sobre todo, lo que la hace temblar hasta las rodillas, Es que manana, !ah! !tendra que vivir todavia! !Manana, pasado manana y siempre! - !Como nosotros! poetry Charles Baudelaire
6744dc1 Those people who shoot endless time-lapse films of unfurling roses and tulips have the wrong idea. They should train their cameras instead on the melting of pack ice, the green filling of ponds, the tidal swings...They should film the glaciers of Greenland, some of which creak along at such a fast clip that even the dogs bark at them. They should film the invasion of the southernmost Canadian tundra by the northernmost spruce-fir forest, which is happening right now at the rate of a mile every 10 years. When the last ice sheet receded from the North American continent, the earth rebounded 10 feet. Wouldn't that have been a sight to see? beauty belief consciousness creation curiosity disbelief energy enoughness epiphany exploration exultant faith fate fearless fire free freedom gaps god grace growth hallelujah humility illumination intricacy joy joyful joyfulness life-force light living-in-the-present-moment mindfulness multiplicity mystery nature philosopher-s-stone philosophy poem poet poetry power praise prayer prayers praying religion religious-diversity ring-the-bells science seeing seeking soul spirit stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it tolerance walking watching wonder Annie Dillard
44b7533 SMART My dad gave me one dollar bill 'Cause I'm his smartest son, And I swapped it for two shiny quarters 'Cause two is more than one! And then I took the quarters And traded them to Lou For three dimes - I guess he don't know That three is more than two! Just then, along came old blind Bates And just 'cause he can't see He gave me four nickels for my three dimes, And four is more than three! And I took the nickels to Hiram Coombs Down at the seed-feed store, And the fool gave me five pennies for them, And five is more than four! And then I went and showed my dad, And he got red in the cheeks And closed his eyes and shook his head - Too proud of me to speak! humor poetry where-the-sidewalk-ends Shel Silverstein
e8657a9 "Last year I had a very unusual experience. I was awake, with my eyes closed, when I had a dream. It was a small dream about time. I was dead, I guess, in deep blank space high up above many white stars. My own consciousness had been disclosed to me, and I was happy. Then I saw far below me a long, curved band of color. As I came closer, I saw that it stretched endlessly in either direction, and I understood that I was seeing all the time of the planet where I had lived. It looked like a woman's tweed scarf; the longer I studied any one spot, the more dots of color I saw. There was no end to the deepness and variety of dots. At length I started to look for my time, but, although more and more specks of color and deeper and more intricate textures appeared in the fabric, I couldn't find my time, or any time at all that I recognized as being near my time. I couldn't make out so much as a pyramid. Yet as I looked at the band of time, all the individual people, I understood with special clarity, were living at that very moment with great emotion, in intricate, detail, in their individual times and places, and they were dying and being replaced by ever more people, one by one, like stitches in which wholly worlds of feeling and energy were wrapped in a never-ending cloth. I remembered suddenly the color and texture of our life as we knew it- these things had been utterly forgotten- and I thought as I searched for it on the limitless band, "that was a good time then, a good time to be living." And I began to remember our time. I recalled green fields with carrots growing, one by one, in slender rows. Men and women in bright vests and scarves came and pulled the carrots out of the soil and carried them in baskets to shaded kitchens, where they scrubbed them with yellow brushes under running water. I saw white-faced cattle lowing and wading in creeks. I saw May apples in forests, erupting through leaf-strewn paths. Cells on the root hairs of sycamores split and divided, and apples grew spotted and striped in the fall. Mountains kept their cool caves and squirrels raced home to their nests through sunlight and shade. I remembered the ocean, and I seemed to be in the ocean myself, swimming over orange crabs that looked like coral, or off the deep Atlantic banks where whitefish school. Or again I saw the tops of poplars, and the whole sky brushed with clouds in pallid streaks, under which wild ducks flew with outstretched necks, and called, one by one, and flew on. All these things I saw. Scenes grew in depth and sunlit detail before my eyes, and were replaced by ever more scenes, as I remember the life of my time with increasing feeling. At last I saw the earth as a globe in space, and I recalled the ocean's shape and the form of continents, saying to myself with surprise as I looked at the planet, "yes, that's how it was then, that part there was called France." I was filled with the deep affection of nostalgia- and then I opened my eyes. beauty belief consciousness creation curiosity disbelief energy enoughness epiphany exploration exultant faith fate fearless fire free freedom gaps god grace growth hallelujah humility illumination intricacy joy joyful joyfulness life-force light living-in-the-present-moment mindfulness multiplicity mystery nature philosopher-s-stone philosophy poem poet poetry power praise prayer prayers praying religion religious-diversity ring-the-bells science seeing seeking soul spirit stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it tolerance walking watching wonder Annie Dillard
faab106 "We tried to educate ourselves. I would invite the girls to my rooms, and we took turns reading poetry in English to improve our understanding of the language. One of our favorites was Thomas Hood's "Song of the Shirt," and another . . . Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Mask of Anarchy." . . . "Rise like lions after slumber In unvanquishable number! Which in sleep had fallen on you- Ye are many, they are few!" poem poetry Howard Zinn
10fcb2d If I can write just one poem that will turn the minds of a few to a more decent outlook...what does it matter if I compose a bad line or lose my reputation as a craftsman?...I used to think it very important to write only good poetry. Over and over I worked it to make it as flawless as I could. What does it matter now, when men are dying for their hopes and their ideals? If I live or die as a poet it won't matter, but anyone who believes in democracy and freedom and love and culture and peace ought to be busy now. He cannot wait for the tomorrow. meaning poetry propaganda purpose war Nancy Milford
7b725b2 The reason for the existence of the perfection conjured up in these fourteen lines is that it possesses ... the authorization to form a message that appeals from within itself. This power of appeal is exquisitely evident in the object evoked here. The perfect thing is that which articulates an entire principle of being. The poem has to perform no more and no less than to perceive the principle of being in the thing and adapt it to its own existence - with the aim of becoming a construct with an equal power to convey a message. being poetry rilke thing-poem Peter Sloterdijk
0829536 "Xerxes, I read, 'halted his unwieldy army for days that he might contemplate to his satisfaction' the beauty of a single sycamore. You are Xerxes in Persia. Your army spreads on a vast and arid peneplain...you call to you all your sad captains, and give the order to halt. You have seen the tree with the lights in it, haven't you? You must have. Xerxes buffeted on a plain, ambition drained in a puff. Your men are bewildered...there is nothing to catch the eye in this flatness, nothing but a hollow, hammering sky, a waste of sedge in the lee of windblown rocks, a meager ribbon of scrub willow tracing a slumbering watercourse...and that sycamore. You saw it; you will stand rapt and mute, exalted, remembering or not remembering over a period of days to shade your head with your robe. "He had its form wrought upon a medal of gold to help him remember it the rest of his life." We all ought to have a goldsmith following us around. But it goes without saying, doesn't it, Xerxes, that no gold medal worn around your neck will bring back the glad hour, keep those lights kindled so long as you live, forever present? Pascal saw it; he grabbed pen and paper and scrawled the one word, and wore it sewn in his shirt the rest of his life. I don't know what Pascal saw. I saw a cedar. Xerxes saw a sycamore." beauty belief consciousness creation curiosity disbelief energy enoughness epiphany exploration exultant faith fate fearless fire free freedom gaps god grace growth hallelujah humility illumination intricacy joy joyful joyfulness life-force light living-in-the-present-moment mindfulness multiplicity mystery nature philosopher-s-stone philosophy poem poet poetry power praise prayer prayers praying religion religious-diversity science seeing seeking soul spirit stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it tolerance walking watching wonder Annie Dillard
daff311 "In the "Republic," Plato vigorously attacked the oral, poetized form as a vehicle for communicating knowledge. He pleaded for a more precise method of communication and classification ("The Ideas"), one which would favor the investigation of facts, principles of reality, human nature, and conduct. What the Greeks meant by "poetry" was radically different from what we mean by poetry. Their "poetic" expression was a product of a collective psyche and mind. The mimetic form, a technique that exploited rhythm, meter and music, achieved the desired psychological response in the listener. Listeners could memorize with greater ease what was sung than what was said. Plato attacked this method because it discouraged disputation and argument. It was in his opinion the chief obstacle to abstract, speculative reasoning - he called it "a poison, and an enemy of the people." media media-criticism plato poetry the-republic Marshall McLuhan
099ad33 Shadow is the blue patch where the light doesn't hit. It is mystery itself, and mystery is the ancients' ultima Thule, the modern explorer's Point of Relative Inaccessibility, that boreal point most distant from all known lands. There the twin oceans of beauty and horror meet. The great glaciers are calving. Ice that sifted to earth as snow in the time of Christ shears from the pack with a roar and crumbles to water. It could be that our instruments have not looked deeply enough. The RNA deep in the mantis's jaw is a beautiful ribbon. Did the crawling Polyphemus moth have in its watery heart one cell, and in that cell one special molecule, and that molecule one hydrogen atom, and round that atom's nucleus one wild, distant electron that split showed a forest, swaying? beauty belief creation curiosity disbelief energy epiphany exploration exultant faith fate fearless fire free freedom gaps god grace growth hallelujah humility illumination intricacy joy joyful joyfulness life-force light mindfulness multiplicity mystery nature philosopher-s-stone philosophy poem poet poetry power praise prayer prayers praying religion religious-diversity science seeing seeking soul spirit stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it tolerance walking watching wonder Annie Dillard
4141d28 Yo me salgo desnudo a la calle, maduro de versos perdidos. I step naked into the street ripe with lost poems. life night poetry Federico García Lorca
cab925d Pero yo ya no soy yo, ni mi casa es ya mi casa. poetry romance-sonámbulo spanish Federico García Lorca
58e48a8 "...My voice is stained with bloody light, and I see irises dry up at its touch; in my song I wear the finery of a white-faced clown. Love, sweet Love, hides under a spider. The sun, another spider, hides me under legs of gold. I will not find my fortune, for I am like Love himself, love poetry Federico García Lorca
5488822 So about an hour later we are in the taxi shooting along empty country roads towards town. The April light is clear as an alarm. As we pass them it gives a sudden sense of every object existing in space on its own shadow. I wish I could carry this clarity with me into the hospital where distinctions tend to flatten and coalesce. I wish I had been nicer to him before he got crazy. These are my two wishes. children clarity dementia illness parents poem poetry Anne Carson
3b41102 "Say you could view a time-lapse film of our planet: what would you see? Transparent images moving through light, "an infinite storm of beauty." The beginning is swaddled in mists, blasted by random blinding flashes. Lava pours and cools; seas boil and flood. Clouds materialize and shift; now you can see the earth's face through only random patches of clarity. The land shudders and splits, like pack ice rent by a widening lead. Mountains burst up, jutting and dull and soften before your eyes, clothed in forests like felt. The ice rolls up, grinding green land under water forever; the ice rolls back. Forests erupt and disappear like fairy rings. The ice rolls up-mountains are mowed into lakes, land rises wet from the sea like a surfacing whale- the ice rolls back. A blue-green streaks the highest ridges, a yellow-green spreads from the south like a wave up a strand. A red dye seems to leak from the north down the ridges and into the valleys, seeping south; a white follows the red, then yellow-green washes north, then red spreads again, then white, over and over, making patterns of color too swift and intricate to follow. Slow the film. You see dust storms, locusts, floods, in dizzying flash frames. Zero in on a well-watered shore and see smoke from fires drifting. Stone cities rise, spread, and then crumble, like patches of alpine blossoms that flourish for a day an inch above the permafrost, that iced earth no root can suck, and wither in a hour. New cities appear, and rivers sift silt onto their rooftops; more cities emerge and spread in lobes like lichen on rock. The great human figures of history, those intricate, spirited tissues that roamed the earth's surface, are a wavering blur whose split second in the light was too brief an exposure to yield any images. The great herds of caribou pour into the valleys and trickle back, and pour, a brown fluid. Slow it down more, come closer still. A dot appears, like a flesh-flake. It swells like a balloon; it moves, circles, slows, and vanishes. This is your life." beauty belief consciousness creation curiosity disbelief energy enoughness epiphany exploration exultant faith fate fearless fire free freedom gaps god grace growth hallelujah humility illumination intricacy joy joyful joyfulness life-force light living-in-the-present-moment mindfulness multiplicity mystery nature philosopher-s-stone philosophy poem poet poetry power praise prayer prayers praying religion religious-diversity ring-the-bells science seeing seeking soul spirit stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it tolerance walking watching wonder Annie Dillard
0b2e777 On Beauty No, we could not itemize the list of sins they can't forgive us. The beautiful don't lack the wound. It is always beginning to snow. Of sins they can't forgive us speech is beautifully useless. It is always beginning to snow. The beautiful know this. Speech is beautifully useless. They are the damned. The beautiful know this. They stand around unnatural as statuary. They are the damned and so their sadness is perfect, delicate as an egg placed in your palm. Hard, it is decorated with their face and so their sadness is perfect. The beautiful don't lack the wound. Hard, it is decorated with their face. No, we could not itemize the list. Cape Cod, May 1974 poetry Zadie Smith
e74d8b4 Tell her I was young once and star-bright Who am now invisible . . . henry-and-cato invisible iris-murdoch poetry young Iris Murdoch
a20bbb6 They lay together in a sheltered place among the ruins of Brasilia while deathbeams from Chinese EMVs played like blue searchlights on broken ceramic walls. poetic-prose poetry sci-fi war Dan Simmons
db0b843 I will be glad to go. There is no poetry here. It is as I have always set forth: joy comes of its own free will; it cannot be belabored. joy poetry Jack Vance
15b30be As we know, Rilke, under the influence of Auguste Rodin, whom he had assisted between 1905 and 1906 in Meudon as a private secretary, turned away from the art nouveau-like, sensitized-atmospheric poetic approach of his early years to pursue a view of art determined more strongly by the priority of the object. The proto-modern pathos of making way for the object without depicting it in a manner 'true to nature', like that of the old masters, led in Rilke's case to the concept of the thing-poem - and thus to a temporarily convincing new answer to the question of the source of aesthetic and ethical authority. From that point, it would be the things themselves from which all authority would come - or rather: from this respectively current singular thing that turns to me by demanding my full gaze. This is only possible because thing-being would now no longer mean anything but this: having something to say. poetry rilke rodin thing-poem Peter Sloterdijk
309de7e What the poet has to say to the torso of the supposed Apollo, however, is more than a note on an excursion to the antiquities collection. The author's point is not that the thing depicts an extinct god who might be of interest to the humanistically educated, but that the god in the stone constitutes a thing-construct that is still on air. We are dealing with a document of how newer message ontology outgrew traditional theologies. Here, being itself is understood as having more power to speak and transmit, and more potent authority, than God, the ruling idol of religions. In modern times, even a God can find himself among the pretty figures that no longer mean anything to us - assuming they do not become openly irksome. The thing filled with being, however, does not cease to speak to us when its moment has come. being god poet poetry rilke thing-poem Peter Sloterdijk
b6d1563 In the midst of the ubiquitous dealings with prostituted signs, the thing-poem was capable of opening up the prospect of returning to credible experiences of meaning. It did this by tying language to the gold standard of what things themselves communicate. Where randomness is disabled, authority should shine forth. being communication poetry randomness rilke thing-poem Peter Sloterdijk
b593b29 Chesterton never achieves a great poem because his poems are compilations of statements not intensely felt but only intensely meant. poetry Hugh Kenner
c3c7d89 Minutes, foolish mortal, are the base mineral that you must not let go of without extracting their gold! poetry time Charles Baudelaire
7badb97 My mother always closes her bedroom drapes tight before going to bed at night. I open mine as wide as possible. I like to see everything, I say. What's there to see? Moon. Air. Sunrise. All that light on your face in the morning. Wakes you up. I like to wake up. drapes light morning poem poetry sleeping waking-up Anne Carson
9a93031 Banal sexism aside, I find myself tempted to read as one thick stacked act of revenge for all that life withheld from Emily. But the poetry shows traces of a deeper explanation. As if anger could be a kind of vocation for some women. It is a chilly thought. emily-bronte poem poetry revenge sexism wuthering-heights Anne Carson
795a852 For that you should read the original. In very great poetry the music often comes through even when one doesn't know language. I loved Dante passionately before I knew a word of Italian. poetry Donna Tartt
821fc1f The basic rules of male-female relations were imparted atmospherically in our family, no direct speech allowed. male-female-relationships men-and-women poem poetry relationships sex Anne Carson
1f287da It gives the war a whole new dimension, you know, hearing from someone right there in the thick of it. They really connected with it.' 'Maybe it reminds them of school,' she suggests. 'Didn't someone describe the trenches as ninety-nine per cent boredom and one per cent terror?' 'I don't know about boredom. God, the chaos of it, the brutality. And it's so vivid. I'd definitely be interested in reading his poetry, if only to see how he can go from describing, you know, people getting their guts blown out, to writing about love.' 'Maybe it's not that much of a leap,' she says. love poetry war Paul Murray
c8839a2 In India when I was a boy they had great big green lizards there, and if you shouted or shot them their tails would fall off. There was only one boy in the school who could catch lizards intact. No one knew quite how he did it. He had a special soft way of going up to them, and he'd bring them back with their tails on. That strikes me as the best analogy I can give you. To try and catch your poem without its tail falling off. poetry the-paris-review Lawrence Durrell
334381d "Almost Myself On a twilight road, I met a young man with my face. A denizen of some distant dust devil in drifter denim. We stood and eyed each other, then, with a look of mutual disdain, we parted. doppelgänger drifter hitchhiking poem poems-on-life poetry supernatural-mystery twilight twin-soul Stewart Stafford
4f14022 Registration Day' by Gavin Gunhold (1899-- ) Toronto Review of Poetry, 1947 On registration day at taxidermy school I distinctly saw the eyes of the stuffed moose Move. humor moose poetry school taxidermy taxidermy-school Gordon Korman
cf06fb9 "Con un coltello, un coltellino, in un giorno di festa, tra le due e le tre, si uccisero i due uomini dell'amore. Con un coltello, un coltellino che lo contiene una mano, ma che penetra sottile fra le carni stupite, e si ferma nel punto death italiano poetry violence Federico García Lorca
95ece53 "There are dewdrops on the nightingale's wings, bright beads of moon distilled by hope. On the marble fountain poetry Federico García Lorca
833a6f6 "...I see fetal sciences in you, mummified poems, and bones of my romantic secrets and old innocence. Shall I hang you on the wall of my emotional museum, beside the dark, chill, sleeping irises of my evil? Or shall I spread you over the pines --suffering book of my love-- poetry Federico García Lorca
a81ba54 ...with no morning the day is sold. philiplevine poetry Philip Levine
51cccea At that moment Sonny noticed that the other car had not kept going but had parked a few feet ahead, still blocking his way. At that same moment his lateral vision caught sight of another man in the darkened tollbooth to his right. But he did not have time to think about that because two men came out of the car parked in front and walked toward him. The toll collector still had not appeared. And then in the fraction of a second before anything actually happened, Santino Corleone he knew he was a dead man. And in that moment his mind was lucid, drained of all violence, as if the hidden fear finally real and present had purified him. murder poetry violence Mario Puzo
8b885a6 "...Maybe it's the fault of our language but dreams are innocent and pictorial. Then let our dreams speak for us side by side, leg over leg, an electroencephalographic kiss poetry Phillip Lopate
87de990 "Naked solitude with neither gesture nor word. Transparent in the orchard, smooth as oil on the hill. Silent solitude with neither fragrance nor weathervane, weighing on the backwaters, drowsy and alone. Lofty solitude, all brow and bright stars, like a huge pallid head, lopped off. Round solitude that leaves in our hands soft lilies of pensive frost. love poetry Federico García Lorca
1f602bf "No I do not like blaming. Because for me it's enough if someone is other than bad--not too much out of hand, conscious at least of the justice that helps the city, a healthy man. No I shall not lay blame. Because fools are a species that never ends. greek philosophy poetry translation Simonides of Ceos
1b132ac CHORUS Many are the shapes of things divine. Many are the unexpected acts of gods. What we imagined did not come to pass -- God found a way to be surprising. That's how this went. poetry Anne Carson
eeced15 Oh look, here's Death at the gate! Punctual as ever. poetry Anne Carson
78d8a71 "Many terribly quiet customers exist but none more terribly quiet than Man his footsteps pass so perilously soft across the sea in marble winter up the stiff blue waves and every Tuesday down he grinds the unastonishable earth with horse and shatter shatters too the cheeks of birds and traps them in his forest headlights salty silvers roll into his net, he weaves it just for that, this terribly quiet customer he dooms hamlet poetry sophocles translation Sophocles Carson Anne
7cc8857 As tree shapes from mist / Her young death / Loose / In you. grief poetry Anne Carson
cf81a39 THE NEXT DAY WAS RAIN-SOAKED and smelled of thick sweet caramel, warm coconut and ginger. A nearby bakery fanned its daily offerings. A lapis lazuli sky was blanketed by gunmetal gray clouds as it wept crocodile tears across the parched Los Angeles landscape. When Ivy was a child and she overheard adults talking about their break-ups, in her young feeble-formed mind, she imagined it in the most literal of essences. She once heard her mother speaking of her break up with an emotionally unavailable man. She said they broke up on 69th Street. Ivy visualized her mother and that man breaking into countless fragments, like a spilled box of jigsaw pieces. And she imagined them shattered in broken shards, being blown down the pavement of 69th Street. For some reason, on the drive home from Marcel's apartment that next morning, all Ivy could think about was her mother and that faceless man in broken pieces, perhaps some aspects of them still stuck in cracks and crevices of the sidewalk, mistaken as grit. She couldn't get the image of Marcel having his seizure out of her mind. It left a burning sensation in the center of her chest. An incessant flame torched her lungs, chest, and even the back door of her tongue. Witnessing someone you cared about experiencing a seizure was one of those things that scribed itself indelibly on the canvas of your mind. It was gut-wrenching. Graphic and out-of-body, it was the stuff that post traumatic stress syndrome was made of. beauty black-authors black-history deity emotion foodies humor inspiration knowledge literary-fiction love meaning new-york poetry prose rebirth scorpios sex stress valentine-s-day wilmington wisdom Brandi L. Bates
d0fc02b "Be careful... What the dude said, ain't it? ... One lived in the woods and didn't pay his taxes. Musta been before Lyme disease, when you could still get by with that shit. You know the dude I talkin' about. Said to watch out for jobs you got to dress up for." "Thoreau." "Yeah, that's him." jobs poetry thoreau Lawrence Block
614a80e "You don't have any apples to offer while you're at it, do you?" she asked sourly. "Satan tempting Eve in the garden? Not a terribly flattering role for me, is it? And you're overdressed for the part." Amy's blush rivalled the hue of the dangerous fruit they had been discussing. Somehow, Lord Richard's frankly admiring gaze made the yellow muslin of her gown feel as insubstantial as a string of fig leaves. Amy covered her confusion by saying quickly, "Might I ask a favour, my lord?" "A phoenix feather from the farthest deserts of Arabia? The head of a dragon on a bejewelled platter?" "Nothing quite that complicated," replied Amy, marvelling once again at the chameleon quality of the man beside her. How could anyone be so utterly infuriating at one moment and equally charming the next? Untrustworthy, she reminded herself. Mercurial. Changeable. "A dragon's head wouldn't be much use to me just now, unless it could offer me directions." Richard crooked an arm. "Tell me where you need to be, and I'll escort you." Amy tentatively rested her hand on the soft blue fabric of his coat. "That's quite a generous offer when you don't know where I'm going." "Ten leagues beyond the wide world's end?" suggested Richard with a lazy grin. "Methinks it is no journey?" Amy matched the quotation triumphantly, and was rewarded by the admiring light that flamed in Lord Richard's eyes." directions garden-of-eden poetry richard Lauren Willig
b6e7ac3 Poetry... it consumed Sappho's young years, it nourished Goethe's old age. Drug, the Greeks called it, both poison and medicine. medicinea poetry poison Umberto Eco
2aa4788 Those who sit in the house of grief will someday sit in the garden. grieving poetry Gregory Maguire
a31ca64 Mathematics isn't just science, it is poetry - our efforts to crystallise the unglimpsed connections between things. Poetry that bridges and magnifies the mysteries of the galaxy. But the signs and symbols and equations sentients employ to express these connections are not discoveries but the teasing out of secrets that have always existed. poetry James Luceno
1918d6f "VI. Wisdom: The Voice of God Ninety percent of what's wrong with you could be cured with a hot bath, says God through the manhole covers, but you want magic, to win the lottery you never bought a ticket for. (Tenderly, the monks chant, embrace the suffering.) The voice never panders, offers no five-year plan, no long-term solution, no edicts from a cloudy white beard hooked over ears. It is small and fond and local. Don't look for your initials in the geese honking overhead or to see through the glass even poetry wisdom Mary Karr
a1dbbe3 Czemu ty sie, zla godzino, z niepotrzebnym mieszasz lekiem? Jestes - a wiec musisz minac. Miniesz - a wiec to jest piekne poetry poezja polish time-passing upływ-czasu złe-czasy Wisława Szymborska
a18de70 You, Reader I wonder how you are going to feel when you find out that I wrote this instead of you, that it was I who got up early to sit in the itchen and mention with a pen the rain-soaked windows, the ivy wallpaper, and the goldfish circling in its bowl. Go ahead and turn aside, bite your lip and tear out the page, but, listen- it was just a matter of time before one of us happened to notice the unlit candles and the clock humming on the wall. Plus, nothing happened that morning- a song on the radio, a car whistling along the road outside- and I was only thinking about the shakers of salt and pepper that were standing side by side on a place mat. I wondered if they had become friends after all these years or if they were still strangers to one another like you and I who manage to be known and unknown to each other at the same time- me at this table with a bowl of pears, you leaning in a doorway somewhere near some blue hydrageas, reading this. poetry reader Billy Collins
a4aa61f Thank-You Notes Under the vigilant eye of my mother I had to demonstrate my best penmanship By thanking Uncle Gerry for the toy soldiers- Little red members of the Coldstream Guards- And thanking Aunt Helen for the pistol and holster, But now I am writing other notes Alone at a small cherry desk with a breeze coming in an open window, thanking everyone I happen to see on my long walk to the post office today and anyone who ever gave me directions or placed a hand on my shoulder, or cut my hair or fixed my car. And while I am at it, thanks to everyone who happened to die on the same day that I was born. Thank you for stepping aside to make room for me, for giving up you seat, getting out of the way, to be blunt. I waited until midnight on that day in March before I appeared, all slimy and squinting, in order to leave time for enough of the living to drive off a bridge or collapse in a hallway so that I could enter without causing a stir. So I am writing now to thank everyone who drifted off that day like smoke from a row of blown-out candles- for giving up your only flame. One day, I will follow your example and step politely out of the path of an oncoming infant, but not right now with the subtropical sun warming this page and the wind stirring the fronds of the palmettos, and me about to begin another note on my very best stationary to the ones who are making room today for the daily host of babies, descending like bees with their wings and stingers, ready to get busy with all their earthly joys and tasks. poetry Billy Collins
9d9ac96 On Not Finding You at Home Usually you appear at the front door when you hear my steps on the gravel, but today the door was closed, not a wisp of pale smoke from the chimney. I peered into a window but there was nothing but a table with a comb, some yellow flowers in a glass of water and dark shadows in the corners of the room. I stood for a while under the big tree and listened to the wind and the birds, your wind and your birds, your dark green woods beyong the clearing. This is not what it is like to be you, I realized after a few of your magnificent clouds flew over the rooftop. It is just me thinking about being you. And before I headed back down the hill, I walked in a circle around your house, making an invisible line which you would have to cross before dark. me poetry waiting you Billy Collins
8fd2ec8 Words shouldn't be dirty or clean But definitely sweet, On the tongue, in the mind. poetry Jane Yolen
a0221d7 "Theme It's a sunny weekday in early May and after a ham sandwich and a cold bottle of beer on the brick terrace, I am consumed by the wish to add something to one of the ancient themes- youth dancing with his eyes closed, for example, in the shadows of corruption and death, or the rise and fall of illustrious men strapped to the turning wheel of mischance and disaster. There is a slight breeze, just enough to bend the yellow tulips on their stems, but that hardly helps me echo the longing for immortality despite the roaring juggernaut of time, or the painful motif of Nature's cyclial return versus man's blind rush to the grave. I could loosen my shirt and lie down in the soft grass, sweet now after its first cutting, but that would not produce a record of the pursuit of the moth of eternal beauty or the despondency that attends the eventual dribble of the once gurgling fountain of creativity. So, as far as great topics go, that seems to leave only the fall from exuberant maturity into sudden, headlong decline- a subject that fills me with silence and leaves me with no choice but to spend the rest of the day sniffing the jasmine vine and surrendering to the ivory goverance of the piano by picking out with my index finger the melody notes of "Easy to Love," a song in which Cole Porter expresses, with put-on nonchalance, the hopelessness of a love brimming with desire and a hunger for affection, but met only and always with frosty disregard." hopelessness immortality love poetry Billy Collins
35d936c I Love You' Early on, I noticed that you always say it to each of your children as you are getting off the phone with them just as you never fail to say it to me whenever we arrive at the end of a call. It's all new to this only child. I never heard my parents say it, at least not on such a regular basis, nor did it ever occur to me to miss it. To say I love you pretty much every day would have seemed strangely obvious, like saying I'm looking at you when you are standing there looking at someone. If my parents had started saying it a lot, I would have started to worry about them. Ofcourse, I always like hearing it from you. That is never a cause for concern. The problem is I now find myself saying it back if only because just saying good-bye then hanging up would make me seem discourteous. But like Bartleby, I would prefer not to say it so often, would prefer instead to save it for special occasions, like shouting it out as I leaped into the red mouth of a volcano with you standing helplessly on the smoking rim, or while we are desperately clasping hands before our plane plunges into the Gulf of Mexico, which are only two of the examples I had in mind, but enough, as it turns out, to make me want to say it to you now, and what better place than in the final couplet of a poem where, as every student knows, it really counts. poetry Billy Collins
847ba5e I would rather eat at the bar, but such behavior is regarded by professionals as a form of denial, so here I am seated alone at a table with a white tablecloth attended by an elderly waiter with no name- ideal conditions for dining alone according to the connoisseurs of this minor talent. I have brought neither book nor newspaper since reading material is considered cheating. Eating alone, they say, means eating alone, not in the company of Montaigne or the ever-engaging Nancy Mitford. Nor do I keep glancing up as if waiting for someone who inevitably fails to appear- a sign of moral weakness to those who take this practice seriously. poetry Billy Collins
22d7d9b "They walked slowly, taking the shortest way, deliberately cutting through Campo delle Fava to avoid the crowds in Calle della Bissa. When they arrived at the foot of the Rialto bridge, they looked up at it, horrified. Anthill, termites, wasps. Ignoring these thoughts, they locked arms and started up, eyes on their feet and the area immediately in front of them. Up, up, up as feet descended towards them, but they ignored them and didn't stop. Up, up, up and across the top, shoving their way through the motionless people, deaf to their admiration. Then down, down, down, the momentum of their descent making them more formidable, They saw the feet of the people coming up towards them dance to the side at their approach, hardened their hearts to their protests, and plunged ahead. Then left and into the underpass, where they stopped, Brunetti's pulse raced and Paola leaned helpless on his arm. "I can't stand it any more," Paola said and pressed her forehead against his shoulder." poetry Donna Leon
f85e10e "You either a poet or a homosexual." "Oh, shit, that's fucked up. Why can't I be both?" homosexuals poetry poets Paul Beatty
c38eac9 "It is interesting that a guy like W.E.B. Du Bois, who actually did very little, I should imagine, with his hands, wrote about "I am the smoke king." Without the labor, both free and slave, of African Americans this country would still be a wilderness." america labor poetry race race-relations united-states us usa w-e-b-du-bois Nikki Giovanni
1618365 Poezje pisze sie lzami, powiesc krwia, a historie rozczarowaniem. dissapointment historia history krew novel poetry poezja polish powieść rozczarowanie tears łzy Carlos Ruiz Zafón
bf83c84 "When I reached the vestibule of my apartment building, the campus police closed in on me. I heard Professor Edelstein shout, it's okay, he's a poet. Matter of fact, the best black ... the best poet writing today." The cops instantly backed off. I was protected by poetic immunity. I had permission to act crazy." poetry poets Paul Beatty
cec1c63 Not in all ways (of course), but the animals you know have power: they have abilities humans lack, could be dangerous, could bring life, mean things that mean things. nature poetry Jonathan Safran Foer
f4e2165 The older poets were Ethelbert Miller, Kenneth Carroll, Brian Gilmore. It is important that I tell you their names, that you know that I have never achieved anything alone. poetry poets ta-nehisi-coates-quote theory Ta-Nehisi Coates
f8a4407 "You were wrong," he murmured ruefully, resting his cheek on top of Amy's head. "You weren't safe with me." "I feel like Psyche kissing Cupid in the dark," Amy said dreamily. Richard drew Amy's arms around his back under his cloak. "Feel. No wings." Amy could hear the smile in the Gentian's voice. "Does that mean if I unmask you, you won't fly away?" Richard tightened his grip on Amy's arms. "Don't even consider it." "You could give me three trials, like Psyche." "With what as the prize at the end? Me, or membership in the League?" Amy managed the difficult feat of looking at him askance with her nose only inches from his. "It would be much easier for me to answer that question if I knew who you were." "What's in a name? A Gentian by any other name would--" "Be an entirely different flower," interjected Amy, swatting him on the arm. "I refuse to be fobbed off with poor imitations of Shakespeare." "If you don't like Romeo and Juliet, how about a sonnet?" Richard suggested. "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art--" "Not that easily deterred." Amy extricated herself from Richard's arms - and his cloak, which had tangled around her knees - and hopped off the window seat. "Damnation," muttered Richard. "I'll ignore that,"offered Amy generously. "And we can go straight to the crucial question of how I'm going to help you restore the monarchy" poetry richard unexpected-rendezvous Lauren Willig
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