Wednesday, April 10, 2013
2013 Poem in Your Pocket Day
Happy National Poetry Month, Cavaliers!
Please comment with your favorite poems below. Be sure to include the title and the name of the poet. This year, we will feature some poetry that is by famous North Carolinians. If you are stumped on a poem idea, check out what others like here.
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An excerpt from T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland"
ReplyDeleteAPRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Jack Gilbert's "Summer at Blue Creek, North Carolina"
ReplyDeleteThere was no water at my grandfather's
when I was a kid and would go for it
with two zinc buckets. Down the path,
past the cow by the foundation where
the fine people's house was before
they arranged to have it burned down.
To the neighbor's cool well. Would
come back with pails too heavy,
so my mouth pulled out of shape.
I see myself, but from the outside.
I keep trying to feel who I was,
and cannot. Hear clearly the sound
the bucket made hitting the sides
of the stone well going down,
but never the sound of me.
Maya Angelou, "Alone"
ReplyDeleteLying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don't believe I'm wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
There are some millionaires
With money they can't use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They've got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Now if you listen closely
I'll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
'Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
"Still I Rise", Maya Angelou
ReplyDeleteYou may write me down in history
DeleteWith your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own backyard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
"Bed in Summer" by Robert Louis Stevenson
ReplyDeleteIn winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.
I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people’s feet
Still going past me in the street.
And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?
"A True Poem"
ReplyDeleteby Lloyd Schwartz
I'm working on a poem that's so true, I can't show it to anyone.
I could never show it to anyone.
Because it says exactly what I think, and what I think scares me.
Sometimes it pleases me.
Usually in brings misery.
And this poem says exactly what I think.
What I think of myself, what I think of my friends, what I think about my lover.
Exactly.
Parts of it might please them, some of it might scare them.
Some of it might bring misery.
And I don't want to hurt them, I don't want to hurt them.
I don't want to hurt anybody.
I want everyone to love me.
Still, I keep working on it?
Nobody will ever see it.
Nobody will ever see it.
I keep working on it even thought I can never show it to anybody.
I keep working on it even though someone might get hurt.
"Diamonds" by Kathryn Stripling Byer
ReplyDeleteThis, he said, giving the hickory leaf
to me. Because I am poor.
And he lifted my hand to his lips,
kissed the fingers that might have worn
gold rings if he had inherited
bottomland, not this
impossible rock where the eagles soared
after the long rains were over. He stood
in the wet grass, his open hands empty,
his pockets turned inside out.
Queen of the Meadow, he teased me
and bowed like a gentleman.
I licked the diamonds off the green
tongue of the leaf, wanting only
that he fill his hands with my hair.
"A True Poem"
ReplyDeleteby Lloyd Schwartz
I'm working on a poem that's so true, I can't show it to anyone.
I could never show it to anyone.
Because it says exactly what I think, and what I think scares me.
Sometimes it pleases me.
Usually in brings misery.
And this poem says exactly what I think.
What I think of myself, what I think of my friends, what I think about my lover.
Exactly.
Parts of it might please them, some of it might scare them.
Some of it might bring misery.
And I don't want to hurt them, I don't want to hurt them.
I don't want to hurt anybody.
I want everyone to love me.
Still, I keep working on it?
Why?
Nobody will ever see it.
Nobody will ever see it.
I keep working on it even thought I can never show it to anybody.
I keep working on it even though someone might get hurt.
Sorry! Messed-up on the first one!
DeleteMountain Time [excerpt] - Kathryn Stripling Byer
ReplyDeleteUp here in the mountains
we know what extinct means. We've seen
how our breath on a bitter night
fades like a ghost from the window glass.
We know the wolf's gone.
The panther. We've heard the old stories
run down, stutter out
into silence. Who knows where we're heading?
All roads seem to lead
to Millennium, dark roads with drop-offs
we can't plumb. It's time to be brought up short
now with the tale-tellers' Listen: There once lived
a woman named Delphia
who walked through these hills teaching children
to read. She was known as a quilter
whose hand never wearied, a mother
who raised up two daughters to pass on
her words like a strong chain of stitches.
Imagine her sitting among us,
her quick thimble moving along these lines
as if to hear every word striking true
as the stab of her needle through calico.
While prophets discourse about endings,
don't you think she'd tell us the world as we know it
keeps calling us back to beginnings?
This labor to make our words matter
is what any good quilter teaches.
A stitch in time, let's say.
A blind stitch
that clings to the edges
of what's left, the ripped
scraps and remnants, whatever
won't stop taking shape even though the whole
crazy quilt's falling to pieces.
"The day I flew"
ReplyDeletetoday was the day
the day i would fly
"Today I'm going to fly" ,I say
i get a running start to help me fly
then liftoff and I'm flying really flying
but only for a second before i land
that's when i began to understand
that while flying is fun
I decide that I am done
because the landing is harder than it looks
so i will just stick to reading about flying in my books.
"don't let her go"
DeleteLook her and I weren’t meant to be
It wasn’t destiny
That put us together
And we weren’t forever
But all’s still fair in love and war
Too bad I can’t love her like I used to anymore
I know you’re not full of yourself
So think about this
She’s no doubt the kind of girl you will miss
No need for any betting
Because losing her is something you will never stop regretting
It’ll haunt you for the rest of your life
And no matter who you’re with
No matter where you go
It’ll replay in your mind like your own personal horror show
No matter how hard you try to forget
You will always know
That you shouldn’t have even thought about letting her go
And if you do let her go
Then you will know
Every bit of pain and suffering I have ever known
Ralph Acosta's "Don't You Quit"
ReplyDeleteWhen things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit-
Rest if you must, but don't you quit.
Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a fellow turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out.
Don't give up though the pace seems slow -
You may succeed with another blow.
Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to a faint and faltering man;
Often the struggler has given up
Whe he might have captured the victor's cup;
And he learned too late when the night came down,
How close he was to the golden crown.
Success is failure turned inside out -
The silver tint in the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It might be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit -
It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.
This is one of my favorite poems! Great choice :)
Delete"Easter Joy" by Joanna Fuchs
ReplyDeleteJesus came to earth,
To show us how to live,
How to put others first,
How to love and how to give.
Then He set about His work,
That God sent Him to do;
He took our punishment on Himself;
He made us clean and new.
He could have saved Himself,
Calling angels from above,
But He chose to pay our price for sin;
He paid it out of love.
Our Lord died on Good Friday,
But the cross did not destroy
His resurrection on Easter morn
That fills our hearts with joy.
Now we know our earthly death,
Like His, is just a rest.
We'll be forever with Him
In heaven, where life is best.
So we live our lives for Jesus,
Think of Him in all we do.
Thank you Savior; Thank you Lord.
Help us love like you!
"Vanity"
ReplyDeleteby Kathryn Stripling Byer
Without hands
a woman would stand at her mirror
looking back only,
not touching, for how could she?
Eyelid.
Cheek.
Earlobe.
Nack-hollow.
The pulse points that wait to be dusted
with jasmine
or lavender.
The lips she rubs
rose with a forefinger.
She tends the image
she sees in her glass,
the cold replication
of woman,
the one
who dared eat
from her own hand
the fruit of self-knowledge.
A poem by James Chester Rockwell No Title
ReplyDeleteThe beginning of the book North Carolina Poems.
If we have weal, if we have woe,
If we have rights, if we have wrongs,
The world must all our feelings know—
We tell our stories in our songs.
By Robert Creeley
ReplyDelete"America"
America, you ode for reality!
Give back the people you took.
Let the sun shine again
on the four corners of the world
you thought of first but do not
own, or keep like a convenience.
People are your own word, you
invented that locus and term.
Here, you said and say, is
where we are. Give back
what we are, these people you made,
us, and nowhere but you to be.
ReplyDeleteCloser
by Kathryn Stripling Byer
old road dreaming me back home
through coastal plain into the Gulf
stunted pines along the roadside
dripping with dark into night puddles
arcade of pecan trees into infinity
through which my memory roams
like spider webs over wounds
these bare branches over my eyes
maybe souls do flow into and out of the world--
that crow over corn stubble, scythe of light
off the truck's chrome, swish of an icy
mare's tail over the December sky
"Don't You Quit" by Ralph Acosta
ReplyDeleteWhen things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit-
Rest if you must, but don't you quit.
Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a fellow turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out.
Don't give up though the pace seems slow -
You may succeed with another blow.
Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to a faint and faltering man;
Often the struggler has given up
Whe he might have captured the victor's cup;
And he learned too late when the night came down,
How close he was to the golden crown.
Success is failure turned inside out -
The silver tint in the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It might be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit -
It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.
-Madison Sharpe
I met a traveller from an antique land
ReplyDeleteWho said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
''I Have News for You by Tony Hoagland
ReplyDeleteThere are people who do not see a broken playground swing
as a symbol of ruined childhood
and there are people who don't interpret the behavior
of a fly in a motel room as a mocking representation of their thought process.
There are people who don't walk past an empty swimming pool
and think about past pleasures unrecoverable
and then stand there blocking the sidewalk for other pedestrians.
I have read about a town somewhere in California where human beings
do not send their sinuous feeder roots
deep into the potting soil of others' emotional lives
as if they were greedy six-year-olds
sucking the last half-inch of milkshake up through a noisy straw;
and other persons in the Midwest who can kiss without
debating the imperialist baggage of heterosexuality.
Do you see that creamy, lemon-yellow moon?
There are some people, unlike me and you,
who do not yearn after fame or love or quantities of money as
unattainable as that moon;
thus, they do not later
have to waste more time
defaming the object of their former ardor.
Or consequently run and crucify themselves
in some solitary midnight Starbucks Golgotha.
I have news for you—
there are people who get up in the morning and cross a room
and open a window to let the sweet breeze in
and let it touch them all over their faces and bodies.
Dreams by Langston Hughes
ReplyDeleteHold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
- Ashley Dominguillo
April -- North Carolina
ReplyDeleteWould you not be in Tryon
Now that the spring is here,
When mocking-birds are praising
The fresh, the blossomy year?
Look -- on the leafy carpet
Woven of winter's browns
Iris and pink azaleas
Flutter their gaudy gowns.
The dogwood spreads white meshes --
So white and light and high --
To catch the drifting sunlight
Out of the cobalt sky.
The pointed beech and maple,
The pines, dark-tufted, tall,
Pattern with many colors
The mountain's purple wall.
Hark -- what a rushing torrent
Of crystal song falls sheer!
Would you not be in Tryon
Now that the spring is here?
- Harris Monroe (:
April -- North Carolina by Harriet Monroe
ReplyDeleteWould you not be in Tryon
Now that the spring is here,
When mocking-birds are praising
The fresh, the blossomy year?
Look -- on the leafy carpet
Woven of winter's browns
Iris and pink azaleas
Flutter their gaudy gowns.
The dogwood spreads white meshes --
So white and light and high --
To catch the drifting sunlight
Out of the cobalt sky.
The pointed beech and maple,
The pines, dark-tufted, tall,
Pattern with many colors
The mountain's purple wall.
Hark -- what a rushing torrent
Of crystal song falls sheer!
Would you not be in Tryon
Now that the spring is here?
Cristian Silva
ALONE
ReplyDeleteLying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don’t believe I’m wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
There was some millionaires
With money they can’t use
Their wives run around like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They’ve got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Now if you listen closely
I’ll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
‘Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
-Maya Angelou
Lying, thinking
ReplyDeleteLast night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don't believe I'm wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
There are some millionaires
With money they can't use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They've got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Now if you listen closely
I'll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
'Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone-Maya Angelou
-Brendan Rhodes-
January
ReplyDeleteDusk and snow this hour
in argument have settled
nothing. Light persists,
and darkness. If a star
shines now, that shine is
swallowed and given back
doubled, grounded bright.
The timid angels flailed
by passing children lift
in a whitening wind
toward night. What plays
beyond the window plays
as water might, all parts
making cold digress.
Beneath iced bush and eave,
the small banked fires of birds
at rest lend absences
to seeming absence. Truth
is, nothing at all is missing.
Wind hisses and one shadow
sways where a window's lamp glow
has added something. The rest
is dark and light together tolled
against the boundary-riven
houses. Against our lives,
the stunning wholeness of the world.
Betty Adcock
Alone
ReplyDeleteLying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don't believe I'm wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
There are some millionaires
With money they can't use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They've got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Now if you listen closely
I'll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
'Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
-Maya Angelou
*Jamal "Turbo" James*
Hayden Douglas
ReplyDeleteI asked my father,
“would you rather die
of cancer or a heart attack?
Would you rather be executed
or put in jail for life?
Which would you rather be—
a spy or a sentinel?”
And he tried to answer
honestly, combing his thinning hair
with his fingers, thinking of something else.
At last he fell silent. I ran out
to savor the dregs of dusk
playing with my friends
in the road that led to the highway.
The ball flew up toward day
and landed in night.
We chanted. Every other minute
a truck, summoned by our warnings,
brushed past in a gust of light,
the driver’s curses muffled
by distance: the oncoming wheels
were the point of the game,
like the scores in chalk
or the blood from scuffed knees
that we smeared across our faces:
so when my mother called,
her voice was quaint and stymied
and I took all the time in the world
trotting home past tarped barbecue pits,
past names of lovers filling with sap,
past tentative wind from sprinklers:
then I was stunned to see my golden window
where all faces, hanging plants, dangling pots
were framed by night and dwarfed
by a ravenous inward-turning light
Travel Haiku - Ocracoke Island (North Carolina)
ReplyDeleteOcracoke
the children fight over
who should be Blackbeard
Ocracoke
behind the oldest lighthouse
shadow of a fierce pirate
Ocracoke Island, accessible only by ferry or private plane, boasts 16 miles of some of the country's best beaches. Despite the cold weather, unwind here by going sailing, crabbing, or fishing; visit North Carolina's oldest operating lighthouse; or follow the footsteps of the pirate Blackbeard, who, according to legend, roamed these lands centuries ago. Wake up early enough and you can catch radiant sherbet-colored skies at sunrise
John Tiong Chunghoo
Rebecca Wilkins
Reasons to survive November
ReplyDeleteby: Tony Hoagland
November like a train wreck
as if a locomotive made of cold
had hurtled out of Canada
and crashed into a million trees,
flaming the leaves, setting the woods on fire.
The sky is a thick, cold gauze—
but there's a soup special at the Waffle House downtown,
and the Jack Parsons show is up at the museum,
full of luminous red barns.
—Or maybe I'll visit beautiful Donna,
the kickboxing queen from Santa Fe,
and roll around in her foldout bed.
I know there are some people out there
who think I am supposed to end up
in a room by myself
with a gun and a bottle full of hate,
a locked door and my slack mouth open
like a disconnected phone.
But I hate those people back
from the core of my donkey soul
and the hatred makes me strong
and my survival is their failure,
and my happiness would kill them
so I shove joy like a knife
into my own heart over and over
and I force myself toward pleasure,
and I love this November life
where I run like a train
deeper and deeper
into the land of my enemies.
Summer at the Blue Creek, NC
ReplyDeleteThere was no water at my grandfather's
When I was a kid and would go for it
With two zinc buckets. Down the path,
Past the cow by the foundation where
The fine people's house was before
they arranged to have it burned down.
To the neighbor's cool well, would
Come back with pails too heavy,
So my mouth pulled out of shape.
I see myself, but from the outside.
I keep trying to feel who I was,
And cannot. Hear clearly the sound
The bucket made hitting the sides
Of the store well going down,
But never the sound of me.
ReplyDeleteThe life the little girl had was really bad.
She grew up with no one to really love.
Her mother was a crack fen.
Her dad was in jail sentenced with life and no to get out.
She was trapped in a world with no love.
Life for her was hard her mother sold her for drugs.
Not even thinking about her daughters needs.
The little girl felt like she was all alone.
Her mother gave her away.
The little girl didn’t even care.
She knew she would be better off without her.
The little girl felt like she was stuck in a bad dream.
Little girl needed a break through.
Little girl got introduced to God.
Little girl got close with God she fell in love with God.
Little girl life got better as she got closer to God.
Little girl forgave her mother.
Little girl found love
That’s all the little girl needed.
That’s all the little girl wanted.
When the little girl found love in God.
The little girl finally had a good life.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
ReplyDeleteOld age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
"Do not go gentle into that good night"
By: Dylan Thomas
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
I Loved You
ReplyDeleteI loved you, and I probably still do,
And for a while the feeling may remain...
But let my love no longer trouble you,
I do not wish to cause you any pain.
I loved you; and the hopelessness I knew,
The jealousy, the shyness - though in vain -
Made up a love so tender and so true
As may God grant you to be loved again
By: Alexander Pushkin
Here’s s to the land of Long Leaf Pine
ReplyDeleteThe Summer Land Where the Sun Both Shine
Where the Weak Grow Strong and the Strong Grow Great
Here’s to the “Down Home” the Old North Carolina State
~Ashley Ortega