"You are who you think you ain't."
It was November 1968. I was in Vietnam and it was my last Sunday there. I went to the base chapel to give thanks for what I presumed was my safe deliverance from the war. I was surprised when I found I was the only person at church services. I have always been perplexed by that. Some people say war makes you more religious.
I’ve been a devout atheist for the past fourteen years. I am comforted and consoled by it. I laugh the same laugh and cry the same tears as I always did. I am and will always be worm’s meat and I don’t mind. The well written sentence in a good poem and the proof of a profound math theorem that even I can understand still delight me and make me feel somewhat divine.
A wonderful video series describing the work of 13 American poets beginning with Whitman and ending with Plath.
view with a grain of sand: 100 of Wislawa Szymborska’s best poems. It doesn’t get any better.
Every day is a good day for poetry especially if the ancient Chinese masters wrote the poems.
Willa Cather on Walt Whitman
Drinking Alone
I take my wine jug out among the flowers
to drink alone, without friends.
I raise my cup to entice the moon.
That, and my shadow, makes us three.
But the moon doesn’t drink,
and my shadow silently follows.
I will travel with moon and shadow,
happy to the end of spring.
When I sing, the moon dances.
When I dance, my shadow dances, too.
We share life’s joys when sober.
Drunk, each goes a separate way.
Constant friends, although we wander,
we’ll meet again in the Milky Way.
Li T’ai-po
tr. Hamil
It consists of biographical essays of seven major Latin poets, and a final essay on Rome itself during the years of the early Empire—but that description doesn’t quite capture the unusualness of the book’s tone or approach. With his usual sense of showmanship, Highet writes nothing…
The Weary Blues by Langston HughesDroning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway …
He did a lazy sway …
To the tune o’ those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
Sweet Blues!
Coming from a black man’s soul.
O Blues!
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan—
“Ain’t got nobody in all this world,
Ain’t got nobody but ma self.
I’s gwine to quit ma frownin’
And put ma troubles on the shelf.”
Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more—
“I got the Weary Blues
And I can’t be satisfied.
Got the Weary Blues
And can’t be satisfied—
I ain’t happy no mo’
And I wish that I had died.”
And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that’s dead.
letting my memory rush over them like water
rushing over the stones on the bottom of a stream.
I was even thinking a little about the future, that place
where people are doing a dance we cannot imagine,
a dance whose name we can only guess. — Billy Collins, from “Nostalgia” (via proustitute)
William Carlos Williams, RIP, March 4, 1963.
Edna St. Vincent Millay, born today in 1892.
![millionsmillions:
“By then she was bobbing her hair, and after her visit to Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the campus newspaper noted that the percentage of bobbed hairstyles among students shot up from 9 percent to 63 percent.” Edna Saint Vincent Millay, trendsetter. [Image via the Poetry Foundation.]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/c9c65bbc2a5df725fe58dec4f3efcf1e/tumblr_miheq0VN3B1r6xvfko1_500.jpg)
“By then she was bobbing her hair, and after her visit to Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the campus newspaper noted that the percentage of bobbed hairstyles among students shot up from 9 percent to 63 percent.” Edna Saint Vincent Millay, trendsetter.
[Image via the Poetry Foundation.]
nypl:
Happy 111th birthday to the legendary American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist Langston Hughes. At the New York Public Library you can find ample Langston Hughes information including photos , papers , books, and films. Of course you also go over to the NYPL’s great Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and visit the Langston Hughes Auditorium
Happy Birthday to Langston Hughes, born February 1, 1902.
Hughes was a legendary poet, playwright and civil rights activist, perhaps best known for his “jazz poetry” during the Harlem Renaissance.
For more on Langston Hughes, read the poet’s biography.
Today marks the first day of Black History Month and PBS is celebrating with over 100 films, articles, quizzes and resources about Black history and culture! We have a great month of celebrations planned and invite you to stop by and check out PBS’ new website: Black Culture Connection. See you there!
Image sources: Library of Congress, Public Domain, Black Culture Connection
